A website redesign is exciting. But it’s also one of the riskiest moments for your search visibility. It’s common for a business’s enquiries to dry up after launching a new website, because the rankings they’d built up over years disappeared overnight.
The good news is that this is almost always avoidable. Here’s the checklist we follow.
Before you start
Benchmark your current performance
Record where you are now so you can measure the impact of the redesign:
- Organic traffic and conversions from Google Analytics
- Top landing pages from organic search
- Key search terms and positions from Google Search Console
- Number of indexed pages
Crawl your existing website
Use a crawling tool to list every URL on your current site, along with page titles, descriptions and headings. This becomes your master list for redirects.
Identify your most valuable pages
Find the pages that bring in the most organic traffic, rank for important searches, attract links from other websites or generate enquiries. These need the most care.
During the redesign
Keep (and improve) valuable content
Content that ranks well is valuable. Don’t delete it or dramatically cut it without good reason. Improve it instead.
Keep URLs where possible
If a page’s address doesn’t need to change, don’t change it. Every changed URL needs a redirect.
Plan your redirects
For every URL that changes or is removed, decide where it should point on the new site. Use permanent 301 redirects to the most relevant equivalent page, not just the homepage.
Carry across SEO elements
Make sure page titles, meta descriptions, headings, image alt text and structured data are carried across and improved, not lost.
Use a staging site
Build and test the new website on a private staging address, and make sure search engines can’t index it.
Check speed and mobile usability
A redesign is a great opportunity to improve speed and mobile experience. Test before launch.
At launch
- Set up and test all 301 redirects
- Remove any “noindex” settings left over from staging
- Check robots.txt isn’t blocking important pages
- Make sure HTTPS works across the whole site
- Update internal links to point to new URLs directly
- Submit the new XML sitemap in Google Search Console
- Check analytics and conversion tracking are working
After launch
Monitor closely
Watch Search Console and analytics daily for the first couple of weeks. Look for:
- Crawl errors and 404 pages
- Drops in indexed pages
- Changes in rankings for key terms
- Changes in traffic and conversions
Fix problems quickly
If you spot missing redirects or errors, fix them immediately. The sooner they’re fixed, the less impact they’ll have.
Update external listings
Update links in your Google Business Profile, directory listings and social media profiles if URLs have changed.
Don’t panic about small fluctuations
It’s normal to see some movement in rankings for a few weeks after a redesign while Google processes the changes. Large or prolonged drops, however, usually point to a problem worth investigating.
Let us handle it
Every website redesign we carry out includes full URL mapping, redirects and post-launch monitoring. If you’ve already redesigned and lost rankings, our remedial SEO service can help you recover.
