SEO takes place over the course of many years, and, for almost any site, it remains an ongoing concern. True, there are some things that can be implemented or improved over a relatively short span of time – or in fits and bursts, like maintaining a strong on-site blog – but, when we’re looking at the bigger picture rather than one or two of its parts, it’s clear that SEO is an essential practice with an indefinite timeline to it.
As a result, anything that seems to disrupt or dampen your efforts at optimising your site can feel like a real blow. Whether it’s an unexpected (and unfavourable) shift in Google’s algorithm, or a sudden surge in low-quality traffic – or a simple though costly mistake with noindex tags in the wrong places – there are many different potential causes behind a drop on the search engine results page.
Whatever the cause, it can be devastating. While you can work to pick up the pieces, few things can compensate for the years of effort lost in an instant.
Of course, another thing that can have an impact on rankings – for better or worse – is a website redesign. Read on to find out more.
The risks to SEO
It’s true – a website redesign can harm your site’s performance on the SERP. There’s no one reason behind this, but a multitude of factors that may or may not be triggered during your redesign.
- Major changes to content
While good content has a great impact on SEO, it needs to be deployed tactfully. If a page suddenly sees a drastic reduction to the amount of content it features, then this could really harm your ability to rank for particular keywords. Even if you work to keep roughly the same amount of content – or even increase it – but fail to mirror or improve your usage of keywords, you could see a quick drop down the rankings. - Teething issues with adaptive/responsive design
Google gives a lot of precedent to a site’s performance on mobile – not least because mobile searches account for around 64% of all Google searches. If your site is struggling to perform well on mobile, it’ll impact negatively on your Google ranking as well. - Changes to URL structures
If you make changes to URL structures for existing pages, then any internal or external links that still adhere to the old URL structures will lead to Error 404 pages instead. This can easily be avoided by putting 301 redirects in place, but it’s not always implemented in good time. Changing URLs may also mean you lose keywords that the algorithm uses to determine what searches a particular page on your site is relevant to – or issues with canonicalization. - Slower load times
A lot of different things can cause a site to load slower than usual, including adding larger image file sizes and inefficient coding practices. As we know, Google will penalise sites with slow loading times – as do internet users. - Duplicate content or content cannibalisation
Google penalises sites that feature repetition of content or keywords across multiple pages. If, for instance, keywords are used in abundance on two different pages within a site, it can be difficult for the algorithm to know which page to rank higher for that keyword. These issues can often crop up during a redesign without sufficient forward planning, but they’re perfectly avoidable.
There are many more ways in which a redesign can harm a site’s SEO performance either temporarily or over the longer-term, but it’s more than possible to avoid these issues. After all, a website redesign should be able to boost your performance with Google’s algorithm and your site’s visitors.
Avoiding an SEO nightmare
Ensuring that our clients’ site redesigns have a positive impact on all the KPIs and aren’t just cosmetic is one of our top priorities, and it’s something we’ve developed considerable skill with over the years. Many of our case studies are great examples of the ways we’ve adapted our approach in order to maintain ranking positions and avoid any costly fluctuations in keyword usage. These strategies for ranking loss mitigation are a large part of what makes our redesigns so successful.
Having a strong CMS like WordPress at our disposal also means we are equipped with an enviable range of tools to boost site performance and ensure the right footing for improving SEO, rather than harming it.
It’s a misconception that a website redesign necessitates a huge amount of risk. There are ways to address those concerns head-on, and to have a positive impact not just on the aesthetics of the site, but on its technical performance and optimisation as a whole.
