A site redesign is not trivial, especially in terms of SEO.
Several sites have already seen their traffic drop due to a misconfigured robots.txt, an HTTP header, or the META robots, which remained in “nofollow, noindex” as in the pre-production universe.
And I’m not talking here about significant changes that can affect the tree structure and the internal linking of a site.
I want to talk to you today about a specific client case in terms of redesign: a dozen websites that are now on a single domain and a single site.
The objective of this article is not to slap on the fingers of this or that site for not having respected a “good practice” or to put under the spotlight an area that could have run straight into the wall in terms of SEO.
The objective is to remind you of some good practices, take stock of project management and give tips on a case that is out of the ordinary thanks to the experience of an SEO agency specializing in SEO redesigns.
What is the context of the SEO redesign/migration?
Changes in communication, starting from several historical sites belonging to the same group, the client asked us to find out if, in terms of SEO, it was possible to repatriate all the content and information on a single site… but also which was the best practice in terms of SEO to carry out this major project!
The prerequisite for the redesign
Take the time and step back: do not go headlong
Before embarking body and soul on the project, we must consider all the issues, ensure the scope of these changes and see if we have control over all the project stages. And so, if not, who is in charge of which part?
First question: repatriate the sites in sub-domains or folders.
An essential question in SEO that allowed us to work better and strengthen the internal network, but also better management in terms of communication following the brand’s will.
Small tip: it is not because we have chosen the folders that we cannot split the Search Consoles.
The plus: you will only have to set up a validation element once on the domain.
Second question: What to do with all the incoming links?
Know that to maximize your efforts. It is always better to have a link pointing to a final URL (200) than to have a link pointing to an old URL, which redirects (at 301) to the absolute URL.
It is, therefore, more interesting to modify the source links when possible.
We thus limit “breakage” or potential loss of “juice” by having links that point directly to the “new” domain. We estimate the possible loss at 30% on average.
This, of course, depends on the domain from which you have a link, its age, the anchor used, and the landing page on your site.
Be aware that you will not be able to modify all the links: focus on those that are made to pages that have had (at least) X sessions in the last 12 months and those that are made from high authority domains, and then sort by business priorities and contextualized links.
An SEO roadmap for redesign by learnb2bmarketing
Create a roadmap and an implementation plan: a redesign is project management, and an extensive site redesign is meticulous project management.
And tell yourself that the more you have succeeded in changing links, the better it will be for your net linking and a rapid passage of robots.
Third question: how to improve the passage of robots on my new pages?
We have seen that the net linking already carried out and the modification of the links can have a significant impact on your reference, but also on the discovery of new pages by the search engines’ robots.
That’s not all, also anticipate the links you will be able to make on the site after its redesign: the addition of new referring domains, the addition of links on “deep” pages, and faster passage of robots on the pages of your site.
One sitemap to lead them all
Please don’t neglect your sitemap.xml file either… or should I say your sitemap.xml files: plan one file that will list them all (one single file).
Tip: If you have many new page creations following the change of domain, use the sitemap.xml file and add new pages to this file as you go.
This technique is complementary to using restrictive rules for robots (HTML header, HTML header, robots.txt).
I’m talking about new pages, not indexed pages on an old domain.
If you find aspects missing, in 99% of cases, it is because the data I share is too confidential or because it seemed apparent to me alongside the other elements presented.
Fourth question: redirections, how to do it?
If you know a little about SEO, you saw me coming: you have to think about redirects!
It may seem logical, but it’s always better to state it: make 301 (permanent) redirects to ensure optimal results.
So I didn’t talk about it before because if it’s the keystone or evidence for your strategy, we are obliged to define a “viable” base towards which to redirect the old URLs.
From there, do different crawls of your current sites, and validate and revalidate the URL formats on the new site.
Make a first slave of redirect rules, but be prepared to make at least two more … not to mention some redirects in 1 to 1. Because yes, no matter how much you anticipate, you will always encounter certain exceptional cases.
Tip: put everything black on white (or whatever the color of your software/spreadsheet/…). Please leave it to rest. It’s like a cooking recipe, diving back into it and confronting it with other people.
Fifth question: the pre-production universe
The redesign’s central point may seem to be the redirects in SEO, but you need a pre-production universe.
The universe will be identical to that put online during the “change of domain“, Because having set up redirects is mandatory, knowing how the site will react is crucial.
I recommend between 10 and 15 days where the site should not move, not be modified, no addition of pages, or anything (apart from adaptations to detected blocking points): I call this the freezing period, These 10 to 15 days are the last key days before going online.
Because if you have changed your tests (SEO or not) will not be carried out with identical parameters.
And then, clearly, the redesign is the moment to bring the maximum optimization to your site. Please take advantage of it to support internal meshing, for example.
Anyway, that’s what I did: a new site, lots of pages, robot digestion, etc.
Internal linking: is it helpful or not for my redesign?
Spoiler alert: YES
Apart from this little joke, as we saw in the previous paragraph, the redesign is an opportunity to bring the maximum of SEO optimizations, including optimizing the internal mesh!.
This is crucial for using robots and integrating SEO optimizations of ten sites in one.
Moreover, if you have a pre-production universe well prepared and “frozen” on time, you can test this optimization as much as possible among the others.
Tip: Just because the site has gone online doesn’t mean you must stop working on internal networking! Indeed, the site will continue to evolve, and you must use the first feedback to optimize this point.
Content & optimizations: how do I do the redesign?
The more optimized elements you bring to the site, the better it will be because you will present
My role was to accompany my client in realizing retro planning for writing the content by favoring high-potential pages (business + SEO) and improving pages well-positioned with the old sites.
It’s as if you were showing Google and its “friends” your white paw!
To help you in this task, we had a tab of our follow-up document with all the pages to be optimized/reworked. And we could rely on the client and our internal editorial teams.
Do I have to prepare the site on which I will add all these pages?
Whether you are starting from a new domain and therefore there, it is always better to prepare the site: the creation of a few pages such as the home page, the legal notice pages, the T&Cs, etc.
In my case, I could create large universes that would host my different sites.
That is to say, create the pages, make sure that the future internal mesh will be optimal or at least thoughtful, and start making some external links to the home page (mainly) and some deeper links to universes.
This last net linking part was a key point for the “preparation” of the domain: to make sure that everything was going to be “digested” when adding categories and products, but also that it is not suspicious that many new links are created towards an almost “new” domain or at least little used before.
The summary: your tracking file is your best friend!
Last is the use of a tracking file, a project management file, or a summary file.
I am talking about a file here because in 80% of cases – for practical questions, among other things – we use a file in table format (Excel, Google Drive, or other), but if you have project management software, this is a great point.
I recommend a participatory file, at least online, to allow each of the project’s actors to make changes and especially to have a history.
You can open generic rights to this shared file or software, You should adequately manage the requests (admin, write, read) according to the actors and open separate accesses for each project member: more OK management and limitation of errors.