sanity through redesign - maintaining your search visibility & rankings
DESCRIPTION
Redesigns can have a significantly negative impact on hard-earned search visibility. Steps must be taken to ensure search rankings don't drop. Content structure, internal linking and keywords usage in the new site is critical. Not messing with external linking is a good idea. Google webmaster tools and other analytics can be used to set-up and monitor launches. This talk focused on staying sane - and successful - through a redesign. Case studies included.TRANSCRIPT
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Maintaining Sanity, Measurement and Visibility Through Redesign
Barbara C. CollCEOWebMama.com Inc.
@webmama
+Maintaining... Through a Redesign
Sanity – insert your own definition
Visibility – in organic search results
The Realistic Ability to Measure – a major redesign is going to make it hard to compare apples to apples.
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Goal = Search Results Page Domination
+Top Reasons for Redesign and #1 Effect on Measurement, Visibility and Sanity Company Name
Change/Acquisition = Domain Name Change. Every URL Changes
New SEO Company = Tactical changes too many to mention in this small box
New CEO/CMO = New brand agency, new web design
Repositioning of Company/products = New content, new keywords
+Pre-Redesign (1)
Keyword discovery research – what keywords define the company
Which content drives traffic into site (review landing pages) and set content/SEO strategy to maintain that content
Look at Page Authority (moz.com) and don’t kill pages with high page authority
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Redesign Examples
+Pre-Redesign (2)
Check and document rankings (east/west coast, outside US) Brightedge, MOZ Personalization discussion here….
Competitive Positioning – Who’s There?
Paid Search – Gap Analysis
+More than Rankings – it’s about what it LOOKS like
Examples…..
+Changing DomainsFilename Changes
Inventory which page names are changing Set up redirect list for .htaccess file Use 301 redirects Consider leaving high Page Authority pages’ URLs the same regardless of high value of adding keywords to URL Test redirects before launch Test redirects of main pages after launch by searching and clicking
+Error Page: Count it in Analytics
Example of Error Page
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Organic Search Interests:
Sources
Visits
% New Visitors
Landing Page (ding, ding)
Keyword (no longer)
Google WebMaster Tools Google Analytics
Errors
Indexed
Queries
Clicks
Position
Launch
+Right about Now Spot check for redirect errors – click on organic search results
Home page change? 3 hours
Sitelinks? 1-3 days
Old and new URLs at same time – yup – some overlap
DNS propagation – 4-5 days across world
Major ranking changes – 2 weeks
Launch
2-weeks
+Might be missing redirects?
+Do a visible search.
+ Google Webmaster Tools (tied to Analytics)Queries
+ Google Webmaster Tools (tied to Analytics)Landing Pages
+Conversation Rate Down?
Did the landing page change for a specific keyword?
Did your SEO company get you to produce a new page?
Was there lead generation on the page?
+Don’t forget to Count:
Mobile search
Error pages
Consider traffic that has moved to Google+
Consider traffic that has moved to Twitter
Consider traffic that has moved to Facebook
+Careful about SEO Advice
Moving from http://tidemark.net to http://www.tidemark.net (two sites unless redirects done properly and webmaster tools configured properly)
URL/file name changes – can’t compare page-to-page traffic easily in Omniture or Google Analytics
Letting them choose the target landing page for important keywords when they have no knowledge of company lead generation strategy
Most will say 301s are the right way to go for everything – I disagree. Leave some things alone. Don’t change the URL all the time.
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Have the same person/team work with analytics and webmaster tools.
Have the same person/team work with paid search and web traffic analysis.
WebMama Recommendations:
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More Redesign Examples
Add bill.com before
+Barbara CollWebMama.com Inc.@webmamaeMetrics Boston 2013