Why Should You Avoid Redesigning Your Website?

If you are planning website restructuring and redesigning, think about it twice. All the backlinks and SEO ranks are at stake here. SEO has primary importance when it comes to websites and blogs and articles. The external links are considered as those votes, which will help you rank higher in Search Engine Result pages and the redesigning might damage rankings, even if it’s for the temporary period of time. It is easy to switch and shifty menus and navigation schemes. The new website experience might be easier to browse than old one but it is hack load of problems for SEO.

How does redesigning effect the website adversely?

1. It affects hub pages:

Now the question is what are hub pages? The Hub pages are those temporary seasonal pages that you have worked hard to build and worked even harder to rank on search engines. Hence, when these pages are taken down, you are landed on a page saying ERROR 404 and your efforts till date will go in vein.

When you redesign the website, people are landed with tons of pages saying ERROR 404, how frustrated would they be? This would gravel Google as well. The little change could create a ripple effect throughout your site.

2. That itch:

When you feel that you are bored of looking at the same website again and again and you need a change, do not redesign your whole website. You must change the page or a particular section that is giving you an itch but the whole website redesigning could damage your SEO rankings.

3. Too many 301 redirects:

When you redesign your website, there will as many 301 redirects as many pages and sub-pages you have created. This will slow down the navigation and increase the bounce rate. The SEO fears that redirect would limit the number of page ranks.

4. And of course the URLs:

The changes in URL could result in the big loss. Every day thousands of URLs are changes and their ranks drop like bombs. The perfect solution for not dropping SEO ranks is not to change URLs.

5. Keyword targeting:

The redesigning of your website could mess with the content of the page resulting in keyword target messing. When you redesign your website, you are bound to change your content which damages the keywords you have targeted over a period of time. For example, your one page has a good content but after redesigning it just has pictures, it will damage the keywords and your SEO rankings will drop immediately.

When the content changes, either of the things happens:

• The change of content results into nullifying of the original meta description.
• The new meta is irrelevant for keywords targeted

Things to take care of while redesigning your website:

• Well, for starters avoid the idea of redesigning the website, unless and until you have a very solid reason to do that because it will affect your SEO adversely. Your website does not need redesigning because it is ugly or bad as compared to your competitors but because they are not getting the required attention and are difficult to navigate.
• However, if you are planning to redesign your website, make sure to set up a new website to temporary URL. When the work on your website is complete, just switch the domain and everything will fall into its place. Working live is a big NO NO because it could cause many technical problems.
• When you plan on redesigning the website, it is essential to make the list of URLs of the pages that you are to redesign. You must let Google, Yahoo, and Bing know that you are doing so. Failing to do so will affect your SERP ranks and you will lose your organic traffic.
• Test your website before making it live. You must check the content, Meta tags, URL, graphics or even broken links before going live. It is better to correct them even if does not affect SEO much. It is your moral responsibility to give the quality website to your loyal customers and users.
• Since you are ready with a new website, switch to it all at once. This is a critical step. You have worked hard on it and invested your time, money and energy, its time to show it to your users all at once. The alternative way would be to do in stages, in bits and pieces like one page at once, especially when it comes to big websites. But Google’s recommendation is to do it all at once since this way will expedite crawling.

Some even more crucial things

• Use Google Webmasters Tool and make sure that your website is verified. If it is verified, you are good to go, and if not, you must verify it with the search engines to see how it will index your website.
• You should predetermine your target audience for your website redesigning. As in, you must be sure that by redesigning your website, the audience you have targeted will definitely stick to you in long run. With the redesigning of the website you are likely to face the drop in SEO ranking, so during those times, the correct gambling on your target audience is a must.
• Last but not the least, the content should be fresh and unique. Work on the outdated blogs and articles that have received good attention. A fresh approach to content can help further propel you to new heights. You can also set up a new platform for people to engage with your websites such as having a column for guest posts and comments section. Look at your competitors and see what works out for them. It may work out for you as well.

Final Words:

Website redesigning is recommended only for your website when you are launching new products and services or you are not acquiring enough attention that you must for your website. However, to redesign the website without compromising with SEO ranks, you must hire an SEO service provider that will work on your SEO ranks immediately after your website is life.