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SEO

Here’s How to Retain SEO Ranking even after a Website Redesign

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) Rankings are sensitive and are prone to changing every time there is a change in the design or content of the website without planning for SEO. During a website redesign or redevelopment, there is a high risk of the website losing its organic traffic, rankings and sales.

While there are plenty of blogs and conversation online revolving around how to make a website rank higher up on the search engine results pages (SERP), very few talk specifically about maintaining those rankings, even in the event of a redesign on the website. So, let’s talk about retaining a website’s rankings on the SERP after a redesign on the site and look at some of the tips shared by the SEO experts at Flora Fountain, a digital agency offering SEO Services in Ahmedabad.

search engine optimization

Save the original website’s data first

One of the ways to ensure website’s rankings don’t suffer heavily is by maintaining a similarity in the flow of content and design of the old site. Because search engines rank those pages or websites higher that are easy to navigate. It is important to save the old or current website’s data, i.e. a list of all the pages, its URLs, important pieces of content, keywords and the sitemap for future reference. It helps the developers and designers to ensure the user experience doesn’t get disturbed on the redesigned website.

Don’t make changes on the live site

This is an important point to remember. While making changes or during the redesigning process, the website must be disabled. The updated version should be made live only after testing. But disabling a website means the business will lose many customers and visitors who might be trying to access the site. It is advised to do it on a different domain. Experts providing top SEO services in India suggest that all the changes and updates should be made in a different domain or a staging site, and once all the changes provide satisfactory results in testing, only then the new site be swapped with the old one live on the internet.

Use 301 Redirects

301 Redirects

When there is a change in the URLs, make sure to have 301 Redirects for them. The 301 Redirects notifies the search engines that the content has been shifted to a new location and takes the visitors to the new web page from the old one.

A broken link can damage the ranking of the website, which will eventually lead to losing organic traffic to the website. This happens because the search engine assigns the existing ranking to the new page only after it knows that both the pages have the same content in them.

Check for broken links

Even upon setting up 301 redirects for the pages, problems can still arise. Broken links can show up if there is a mistype or a spelling error in the URLs. And when this happens, visitors and search engines will see a page with the message “404 Page Not Found”. This again creates a bad experience and can be a serious turn off for the visitors. This error damages user experience and search rankings of the website as well.

Look for broken links on the website by using tools like Screaming frog, Bing Webmaster, Broken link checker and Yandex Webmaster.

404 Page Not Found

Reinstall SSL Certificates

Redesigning a website can result in loss of the site’s Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate. And websites with SSL certificates have added advantage on the SERP. Safety and data privacy play an important role in ranking of a website as it gains people’s trust. SSL creates an additional layer of safety that protects the information people choose to share with a website. In other words, it is a protocol used to encrypt communications.
So, every time there is a redesign on the website, it is important to reinstall all the SSL certificates to ensure that the new site starts ranking up on the SERP quickly after going live. Here’s a easy to understand tutorial on how to install SSL certificates on the website

Update the Sitemap

The sitemap is an XML file that’s contains a list of the website’s URLs which helps search engines to know about the pages of your website for crawling. While redesigning a website, it is recommended to create a new sitemap XML document, as it helps search engines to index the website faster. Moreover, it allows site visitors to easily navigate it. An XML sitemap can be submitted to search engines such as Google, Bing, etc. through webmaster tools like Yoast or Sitemap Generator.

Update the Google My Business page

This might sound like a small step, but it is a crucial one. As soon as the updated website is live, the first thing to do is make changes to the Google My Business Page of the business.

Google My Business is an effective tool for businesses to use to improve their local search rankings. It can give local service-based businesses the exposure they need to be at the top of the SERPs in their area.

You don’t want to sabotage your SEO rankings while redesigning the website, do you? Let the Best Digital Agency in Gujarat help your business in retaining them. Drop us a message on hello@flora.ffteam.in

Categories
SEO

Reasons why your website must be SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZED

What did you do the last time you wanted to look for a doctor around you, or check out a good place that could home deliver your favourite Baklavas on order? You asked Google about it.

Over 90% of the searches on the internet are done on Google and there’s only a 5% chance that we go beyond the results shown to us on the first page of the search window.

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And if you’re a brand that wants to be the first option of your consumer base, then you must feature on this first page every time someone searches for your name or a product or service you offer. The only way to be placed on top of the searches organically is through SEO, or Search Engine Optimization.

Wondering what is search engine optimization all about and how is it going to help your business or brand online? Here’s everything you need to know.

What is SEO anyway?

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is an internet marketing strategy where you improve the quality and quantity of your website based on the relevance of what your consumer base is looking and searching for on the internet.

The content on the website is optimized in a manner that ranks higher on the search engine pages of Google or Bing. And when someone looks for something which is even closely connected to your content, it shows up on the top of the search results.

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And this optimization is done by putting up content that’s very relevant to what people are searching for, feature media that’s labelled correctly, contains references and links which support and make sense to the content, and contains the right amount of keywords and phrases which people use to search for your content.

And if you’re still not convinced on how SEO is going to help your business online, here we provide you with 5 benefits of having a website that’s Search Engine Optimized.

Improve Brand Visibility online

We’d like to start with an absolute no-brainer. Just imagine, you are a business that sells premium quality tea through your ecommerce website. While your business and its website appear on top of the search window every time someone looks up your brand name specifically, but whenever someone searches for “premium tea”, it’s your competitor’s name that pops up first. So frustrating, right?

This wouldn’t happen if you use the right keywords which people use to look for your product and service and link it to your website. This way, your brand name features on top of the search results and it gets etched into the minds of people who search for products and content related to your brand. The higher you rank on the search results, your brand’s visibility gets better.

Drive organic traffic to your website and convert them into sales

Apart from improving the visibility of your website, SEO also drives genuine visitors to your website, who hold a higher chance of getting converted into a paying customer for your product or service.

When you use original content, insert the right keywords, use genuine links to establish the authenticity of your content, and provide exactly what your customer is looking for, it is going to show up on the search screens on top.

Understand what and how your consumer thinks

Search Engine Optimization begins with research, about the consumers of the product, their background, their interests, and the time they spend on the internet seeking what they like. And with the data that this research throws up, you can understand the language that your probable customers are talking about and where do their loyalties lie when it comes to a certain product or service offered by multiple brands.

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This helps in using the right keywords in your website, creating content for your website in a language that your consumer base will understand, and keeps them hooked on to it for a longer duration. This, in turn, increases your chances of converting them into a customer.

At the end of the day, your customer is the king and you must create and provide what they wish, and not what you want them to use. And search engines will push only the former on top.

No paying for “Ad Space”

No, you never have to pay Google, or any search engine to rank your website on top of the search results. The positions you see on the results page of the search engine are purely based on who did their SEO perfectly and ticked all the boxes.

We know, you might argue that what about the search results one gets to see with a tiny marker which reads “Ad” in black. They are Google Pay Per Click ads which, just like the name, are paid, advertised links of websites that pay a sum to google for every time someone clicks on that link.

They are not connected to SEO anyway, and all the results you see beneath those links, are purely organic. So technically, if you’re doing your SEO right, you never have to pay for an “ad space” for visibility like businesses have to do with OTT advertising.

Improves credibility of your business

A website that ranks on top of the charts of the search window tends to hold over 70% attention of the viewer compared the ones even in the 2nd or third position. It goes without saying that most of us won’t even bother clicking on the second page to see what more options do we have.

The credibility of brands that rank in the first 5 results is always higher compared to the others. Which means if your brand has done its SEO right, people will prefer clicking on your link if they see it first. This way only the right people get targeted, it results in higher organic footfalls on the website and in turn have a higher chances of getting converted into a valuable lead for the business.

Stay ahead of your competitors

And of course, when you’re on the top the charts every time someone searches for something, you’re miles ahead of your competitors. Just like we mentioned in our first point, you’re able to beat your competitors if you use the right keywords and links that connects with your business, and your visibility is going to peak higher than all.

And if you’re wondering whether your website is SEO friendly or not, how about you drop us a line here for a free consultation with our SEO expert.