{"id":3249,"date":"2024-06-04T21:16:22","date_gmt":"2024-06-04T13:16:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/digitrio.com.sg\/?p=3249"},"modified":"2024-12-22T09:31:59","modified_gmt":"2024-12-22T01:31:59","slug":"website-redesign-seo-checklist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glutenfreepleasure.com\/__proxy_domain\/digitrio.com.sg\/website-redesign-seo-checklist\/","title":{"rendered":"Website Redesign SEO Checklist: Retain & Boost Rankings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Redesigning your website can be thrilling, but it often raises concerns about SEO. The good news? With a strategic approach, you can actually boost your search rankings.At Digitrio, we turn redesigns into opportunities. By integrating SEO best practices from the start, we help you maintain and even enhance your online visibility.Let\u2019s dive into the key steps to ensure your redesign strengthens your SEO and drives more traffic<\/a> to your site.<\/p>\n

\"Website<\/p>\n

Pre-Design Checklist<\/u><\/h2>\n

Before you start designing your site, below are the 3 things to do to make sure that you start off planning with a strong SEO foundation.<\/p>\n

1. Re-define \/ Create Keywords Strategy<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\"Keywords<\/p>\n

Keywords Strategy is the cornerstone of SEO.\u00a0Your Keyword Strategy should involve selecting\u00a0high searched keywords<\/strong>\u00a0that are\u00a0relevant\u00a0<\/strong>to your business at the same time.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. 1Start with Core Keywords<\/strong>: If you’re a florist in Singapore, begin by entering “florist Singapore” into Ubersuggest. This tool, like Google Keyword Planner, requires an account to access its full features but there is a free limited usage.<\/li>\n
  2. 2Analyze Search Terms and Volume: <\/strong>Ubersuggest will provide a list of related keywords along with valuable data like search intent and average monthly searches. Pay close attention to these metrics to understand what potential customers are looking for.<\/li>\n
  3. 3Select Relevant Keywords: <\/strong>As you review the list, add relevant keywords to your plan. Consider both the search volume and the relevance to your business. Ubersuggest’s interface makes it easy to select and organize these keywords.<\/li>\n
  4. 4Expand to Product Categories<\/strong>: Repeat this process for different categories relevant to your business. For example, if you offer wedding flowers, search for keywords related to this category and add the relevant ones to your list. <\/li>\n
  5. 5Download and Organize Keywords: <\/strong>Once you’ve compiled a comprehensive list, download the keywords in CSV format. Ubersuggest allows this, providing you with a structured file that can be opened in Excel. This document will serve as a foundation for your website redesign and overall SEO strategy.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    2. New Site Structure & URLs<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    \"Screaming<\/p>\n

    Get an overview of the current site structure,\u00a0\u00a0metadata and URLs is vital to identifying exactly what is changing and why based on the previous step of\u00a0re-defining\/create keywords strategy<\/strong>. The best tools for it is so use the\u00a0Screaming Frog SEO Spider Tools<\/a>\u00a0and it allow a crawl of up to 500 pages and should be sufficient for most site. \u00a0(They have a paid version as well for those larger sites.)<\/p>\n

    At this point, you want to identify keywords that are with high search volumes that you might not have a page for it.<\/p>\n

    For example, after your re-defining your keywords strategy, you identify that \u201cwedding flowers\u201d have an average monthly search of 210, you will want to include a new category section of your products just to cater to it especially if you send flowers that cater for a wedding.<\/p>\n

    After that, you will want to make sure that keywords are included in the URLs as well and in this case, https:\/\/yourwebsite.com\/wedding-flowers.<\/p>\n

    Document down the new Site Structure & URLs in word documents.<\/strong><\/p>\n

    3. 301 Redirect Map<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    \"301<\/p>\n

    The biggest headache when redesigning a website is having 404 errors when someone visited your old URLs. Thus do prevent that before you even start designing your website, you should create a 301 Redirect Map.<\/p>\n

    If you have done up the previous step, by now you should have a list of all the old Pages URLs & the new Pages URLs and now it is a matter of matching it up.<\/p>\n

    Now, match each old URL with its corresponding new URL. For example, if the \u201cAbout Us\u201d page on the old site is going to redirect to the \u201cAbout Us\u201d page on the new site, etc and do make sure that all old URLs match with new URLs and these will remove any 404 errors when the site is launched. The best tool for this job is none other than just the trusty Excel document.<\/p>\n

    (Note:<\/strong>\u00a0If the site is huge, automating the process is essential by finding the common differences between old & new URLs. like old URL: about.php \u00a0to New URL: about then \u201c.php\u201d is a common difference here. If not possible, at minimum do a redirect on the most important pages for SEO to the new URLs and the rest can redirect to the homepage.<\/em>)<\/p>\n

    During Redesign<\/h2>\n

    So you have done up the steps above to set a solid foundation. But there are still things to take note of during the redesign to prevent redundant work and issues later on.<\/p>\n

    1. Block Googlebot<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    Never forget to block Googlebot from crawling your staging site. Because, the last thing you want is to have Google index your great new content and when you launch the new site, the new content will have close to no value as it will be considered a duplicate.<\/p>\n

    There a few ways to do it but if you are using WordPress, it can be easily done by checking the \u201cDiscourage search engines from indexing this site.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \"Wordpress<\/p>\n

    The next way is to add the following code to every page of your staging site, which is very time consuming especially if you have a large site.<\/p>\n

    \"No<\/p>\n

    The last method is to\u00a0 put the following in your Robots.txt file as below:<\/p>\n

    User-agent: *<\/em>Disallow: \/<\/em><\/p>\n

    Note:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Search engines might not always follow what is set at the Robots.txt and the safer option is to implement one of the other 2 ways above.<\/p>\n

    2. Unique Meta Tagging<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    \"Unique<\/p>\n

    A Meta tag tells Google what the page is all about and even though over the years, this has been a lesser emphasis in Google Ranking due to spam, it is still an important factor and can greatly increase the CTR rate when done right.<\/p>\n

    Thus during the redesign, you want to make sure you implement a unique meta-tagging for each page. Specifically,\u00a0Page Title<\/strong>\u00a0&\u00a0Meta Description<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

    Page Title<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0A title tag is the main text that describes an online document and is ideally\u00a050-60 characters long.<\/p>\n

    Meta Description \u2013\u00a0<\/strong>Meta description tags are extremely important in gaining user click-through from SERPs. The description should optimally be between 150-160 characters long.<\/p>\n

    Pro Tip:\u00a0<\/strong>Try to include your main keyword at least once in the Title and Meta Description when possible.<\/p>\n

    3. Site Speed<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    \"Site<\/p>\n

    Nobody likes a slow-loading site, and Google’s stance is no different. Recognizing the importance of speed and efficiency, Google has consistently favored websites that boast clean codes and quick loading times. This emphasis became more pronounced with the introduction of Google’s PageSpeed Insights tools. These tools are integral in assessing website performance and align closely with Google’s Core Web Vitals<\/a>. These vitals include crucial metrics like Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), which measures how quickly the main content of a page loads, First Input Delay (FID), assessing interactivity and responsiveness, and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), which evaluates the stability of a page’s layout as it loads.<\/p>\n

    A fast-loading site not only fares better in Google’s rankings but also significantly enhances the user experience, ensuring visitors aren’t left waiting. This is especially important in the context of website redesigns, where the focus should be on streamlining and optimizing the site. Particularly for WordPress sites, it’s crucial to eliminate unnecessary scripts or plugins that may impede loading speed. Resources such as the article from Kinsta provide valuable strategies to improve site speed<\/a> in line with Core Web Vitals, boosting both performance and user satisfaction.<\/p>\n

    4. Image optimisation<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    When it comes to fast Site Speed, Image optimisation is the key. Images often account for most of the downloaded bytes on a web page. As a result, optimizing images can often yield the largest byte savings & performance improvements for your website.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/p>\n

    The easiest way to shave off some extra bytes is to make sure that your image is saved at the\u00a0actual size needed<\/strong>. Meaning, if it is only going to be displayed at 500px, do not save a 3000px image and upload it and always use the\u00a0save as web option<\/strong>\u00a0in photoshop.<\/p>\n

    The right file format makes the difference as mine. As a general rule, any transparent image in\u00a0PNG<\/strong>\u00a0& the rest in\u00a0JPEG<\/strong>\u00a0usually do the trick. \u00a0But if you want to bring it even further, you will require an image compression software or plugin.<\/p>\n

    If you are using WordPress, there is a plugin called\u00a0WP Smush<\/a> which helps to compress images when uploaded to WP. Super handy plugin to have.<\/p>\n

    5. Mobile Friendly<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \"Google<\/p>\n

    If you know a bit of SEO, then you must have heard of the April 21st,\u00a0Mobilegeddon<\/a>. The rise of mobile browsing means that when redesigning a new site, you definitely need to be considering the mobile aspect. Below are some of the things to consider:<\/p>\n