Thinking About A Website Redesign? 5 Things You Need To Include

With a revamped website you would typically expect increased traffic and conversions. If your website redesign has been done right, you may see the expected results. However, sometimes you may experience a drop in website traffic immediately after a redesign. Fortunately, there are some ways to quickly fix the possible reasons for this issue.

Are you prepared to redesign your website professionally? / Via graphicriver.net

Most of the web owners and webmasters will have to perform a website redesign sooner or later, regardless of how good the company’s website may have seemed to be in the beginning. However, taking into account the many shifts in consumer Internet use and the numerous Google algorithm changes implemented each year, it may be almost impossible for to deliver the needed results with an outdated website.

Tips to fix website traffic drops following a redesign

1. Redirects - setting redirects after a website redesign can help avoid some of the cases of traffic loss.

2. Site structure - you need to create a new sitemap if your site structure has changed significantly after a website redesign.

3. Site copy - if your website redesign involves an entirely new copy, you need to ensure that the new copy incorporates the original target keywords.

In case that your website traffic drop was caused by one of the issues above, then you can't expect the traffic to go back to normal overnight after fixing the problem. No doubt, that you certainly need to know at least the basics of seo Don't forget, that it takes some time until Google crawls and indexes your new web pages. On average, you can expect a traffic normalization to occur within a few weeks period.

The big lesson here is that you should not only identify what is not working on your website. You should also identify what is already working very well!

How to avoid redesign traffic drops. My personal opinion:

NFL.COM before and after / Via bluefountainmedia.com

In order to ensure a smooth website redesign transition you have to take the following steps:

1. Use SEO in the redesign process.

2. Crawl your existing site and plan your new site architecture.

3. Set up 301 redirects (check out this moz guide for more details).

4. Create a new sitemap.

5. Make sure your analytics tracking code is in place.

Conclusion

Traffic drops after a website redesign can be quite stressful. However, this is an issue more common than you would think. If your website experienced a traffic drop as a result of one of the common mistakes mentioned above, you have to follow certain steps in order to solve the problem. Fortunately, traffic drops of such kind can be avoided with some precaution measures or can be easily corrected if they occurred.

If you haven’t yet redesigned your website, the information provided above can help you avoid common pitfalls. In case that you don’t feel comfortable performing a website redesign job on your own, you can always hire a specialized design agency or get a hand from a professional front-end freelancer. Those experts have an extensive experience in the field and the proper skills to avoid a significant website drop after main layout changing.