SEO while deploying a new site design
Some of the issues that come up when deploying a new site design seem to come up over and over again on the SEO messageboards, usually after a site has tanked in Google, Yahoo and MS LiveSearch after a site redesign rollout. Fixing things after the fact is not the best way to approach the issue, since the damage has already been done. Taking into account what Search Engines will penalize you for, and avoiding those things prior to rollout is a much more effective way to ensure that you don’t lose out in the Search Engines when giving your site a facelift.
One of the biggest mistakes made when deploying a new site design is to completely change the URL structure of a site without putting any safeguards in place. If a search engine spider OR a visitor who has bookmarked a page or followed a link hits a “404 Page Not Found” message, that’s a very bad thing, and one of the biggest mistakes you can make. So either keeping the URL structure the same, or at the very least putting 301 redirects in place via the htaccess file to redirect from each old page to the analogous new page is the best way to ensure that your site won’t sink like a stone in the SERPs. If your hosting is cpanel hosting there’s a gizmo to do this through cpanel without touching any code. You simply put in the old URL that you want redirected from and the new URL you want redirected to. Have a list ready to do each webpage change immediately upon switchover.
It’s also a courtesy to let sites who have linked to your inner pages know about applicable url changes so they can update their links. Not doing so might lose you a link, which is another thing that hurts websites in the search engines, and pisses off visitors and people who link to you. A bit of planning ahead of time and doing your homework about who linked to what inner page will do a lot to head off problems when a new site design is rolled out. Notifying the sites who linked to you the day before rollout is a nice way of handling things. That way the linker won’t get any complaints from his or her own visitors about a broken link.
Of course, keeping the same url structure is a much better way to handle all this, but sometimes that just isn’t possible, especially when going from a static html site to a dynamically generated site. So if the url structure is changing, make sure to have all your 301 redirects ready to go as soon as the changeover happens.
The second biggest mistake comes in major changes made to the the on-site page factors. These include the stuff in the html head area such as the page title, the page description and any meta tags. If this stuff changes majorly, this will affect your SERPs and ranking. You want to minimize these changes as much as possible. If you are changing from a static html site to a dynamically generated site, make sure to choose a dynamic application that allows you to control on page factors such as title, meta description, etc. for each page separately, and try to keep all pages as close to the originals of the html head elements as you can.
The third thing that affects SERPs and Ranking is less easy to control, but is less of a concern if handled properly. Because the source order of information within the html will change, this may, for awhile, affect the way the search engines look at your pages. But if you upgrade your code to be leaner, cleaner xhtml/css compliant and table-less code, you may end up coming out better in the end, though a dip may happen at first. One of the things search engines do take into account is the code to content ratio. You want to decrease the amount of code and increase the amount of content a spider will find when parsing the html, whether it’s static or dynamically generated. The easiest way to do this is to make sure all css and javascript is in separate files and called in through the head via link hrefs. This allows that part of the code to be cached, and lessens load on your html, good for visitors and good for spiders. And using a good source ordered layout will put your content front and center for both the spiders and your visitors, and be friendlier to those using alternative devices such as screen readers.
If you take these simple precautions when rolling out a new site design, you will lessen the negative impact of the rollout. Though you might see a slight dip in the first few weeks as the search engines adjust to your new site design, you will rebound into your former, or possibly even better, placement in a short time.
Choosing a web designer who has a basic understanding of the underlying SEO, is a big help, so maybe it’s time to get yourself a Kickass Website Redesign.
Technorati Tags: SEO, Website Redesign, Search Engines, SERP, PR
