As you start planning your website redesign, it’s easy to get caught up in the small details. But make sure you’re not overlooking one of the most important facets of any site, SEO, or search engine optimization.
Read on as we bring you a quick rundown of everything you’ll need to know regarding SEO and your site’s new design.
Learn Current SEO Trends
SEO is a bit of a tricky situation. On one hand, it can greatly benefit businesses who implement basic SEO practices into their site design. But on the other hand, the world of SEO changes constantly. Don’t be surprised if you’ve missed quite a bit since your last website redesign.
Before you start conceptualizing your brand new website, take a little bit of time to research what’s going on in the world of SEO. Certain elements, such as mobile functionality and voice search, are relatively new and can offer your site quite the rankings boost.
Begin Your Website Redesign By Analyzing Usability
Now that you have a better sense of how SEO has changed over the last few years, it’s time to get down to business and start breaking your site. Don’t worry, it isn’t as destructive as it sounds. All you’re going to do is browse your site as any standard user would. Make sure to visit every page, click every link, and search through every menu and sub-menu.
Now ask yourself: How responsive is your site and is it easy to navigate? Aside from simply being a great web design practice, usability is something Google prioritizes. By making sure that your new site is easy and fun to use, you’ll better serve your audience and maybe even nab that treasured number one spot on Google, too.
Don’t Forget About Metadata
As you start moving things around, it’s easy to forget about tagging your images and pages and restructuring your URLs. While it may not seem important to you, Google loves metadata and relies on it for proper site indexing.
Use Search Terms In Headers
Though much of the SEO world has changed a great deal, the significance of keywords remains. As you start to determine the best keywords for your site’s headers, menu, and content, think about the kinds of phrasing your audience may use when searching for your site. Ideally, these phrases should be natural so they don’t take the user out of the browsing experience.
Audit Before Launch
Finally, once your site looks better than ever, it’s time to give it a final test before launching. Make sure you’ve properly tagged images, implemented search phrases and keywords, and have a functional, usable website. In addition, test your site’s loading speed, watch out for duplicate content, and try and catch any iffy URL structures.
A Website Redesign Doesn’t Have The Quash Your Current Rankings
A lot of site owners get nervous when working on a web redesign, as they’re afraid of messing up their current SEO ambitions. But as long as you’re conscious of everything we’ve discussed today, you should have no problems creating a beautiful new website that Google will love as much as your audience.
Are you interested in getting a great new website but don’t have the time or know-how needed to redesign it and to boost your SEO ranking? Get in touch and let us help!
HD Marketing & Design is here to help businesses just like yours succeed in today’s competitive digital market.
