A small business owner is planning to launch a WordPress website redesign. I spoke with him this week. He wanted to know how we could best preserve his SEO and ensure that he does not lose any search rankings during the transition.
This was an excellent question, and I immediately replied. Then, we discussed common mistakes and how to prevent them with the website redesign project.
My Website Redesign SEO Checklist
A great SEO checklist should combine content planning and execution with technical aspects such as code and schema. Solid SEO is impossible without solid content marketing and a strong codebase.
As you can see, my list below combines multiple elements before and after go-live. This is so that website owners have thoroughly reviewed and verified that the SEO can withstand the transition.
Initial Website Creation
No, follow, no index on development site
You can use valid search engine-friendly URLs
Content planning
To obtain a complete URL listing, use DynoMapper.
To see the top landing pages, review Google Search Console and SEMrush.
Create an SEO sitemap by mapping keywords that are targeted or focused on URLs.
Review content silos to verify that proper parent/child relationships exist
Content creation
Update content with a minimum 1,000-word limit
For grammar and spelling mistakes, proofread any new content
For readability, style new content (e.g., bullets, subheaders and small paragraphs).
For proper meta title and description usage, please review content
Double-check top landing pages to confirm quality content and SEO are in place
Technical SEO Review
To ensure that search engines and humans can understand the structure of your headers, you should review them.
To verify responsive design and code is working correctly, check the website on mobile devices
Validate your template coding according to W3 standards
Live pages: Check code to determine text ratio
Website Go-Live
No, follow, no index from the live site
To validate that the URL structure and flow of a new website are correct, review Google Analytics goals
Upload the updated XML sitemaps to Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tool
Google Search Console will alert you if there are any errors or omissions.
Dyno Mapper is used to crawl new websites and report any errors.
You are likely to find my website redesign SEO checklist helpful. It was full of standard items that any web developer can do.
Many of these steps can be done manually or using a free tool such as Google Search Console. When it comes to something as important as SEO and website traffic, I enjoy the freedom of being free and the human touch.
What Website Design and Development Does Goes Wrong
Internet marketing has been my passion for over fifteen years. I also own a web design agency that I ran for nearly eighteen years. When it comes to website development and SEO, I have seen a lot of great, bad and ugly things.
Most cases fail because someone is not diligent or a good person. This is due to a lack of education or communication.
These are real-world examples where I have experienced SEO derailment due to website redesigns:
The wrong people are managing the website redesign project. The project is either left to marketing or IT management, and SEO employees are left out. Only active participation by the SEO team in the redesign process can protect your SEO.