You’re a responsible business owner, so you know how essential digital marketing is for your brand. You’re willing to invest resources into ensuring your target consumer audience is able to find you easily online. That’s why you prioritize search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. 

You’re not alone in valuing this digital marketing technique, though. SEO marketing is expected to make over $134 billion in revenue by the year 2026. In other words, every niche market has SEO competition that keeps growing – even yours. 

What happens to your brand’s SEO when you’re redesigning a website, though? You know that a website redesign is critical right now to transition your company into a more productive era. Will all the previous SEO work just go away, though?

If you’re concerned about what happens to your SEO rank during a website redesign, you’re in luck. Detailed below is your complete guide to preserving your website’s SEO. 

Why Redesigning a Website (Without Losing SEO) Might Be Smart for Your Business

Your business’s website is the foundation for all other marketing strategies. Any social media or even printed flyers should mention your brand’s website. 

The website for any business serves three main purposes: to attract a target audience, to engage or get a sale from that target audience, and to redirect back to other digital marketing avenues such as social media profiles. 

If your website isn’t as engaging and functional as it can be, your business is missing out. That’s why many business owners have turned to a full-blown website redesign. 

A website redesign can give your business’s brand the push it needs to gain an even wider reach for your target consumer base. You might even be redesigning the business’s entire brand. Sometimes, this just makes sense to keep up with market competitors. 

If you’re taking the time to redesign your website, include your previous SEO work in the new version. Business experts in every industry assert just how important proper SEO is for any market.

For the launch of your new website, it should be just as effective at attracting online users – if not more so. Don’t lose that hard-earned SEO rank – build on it!

Check Your Current SEO Status Before You Switch Over

One of the first things you should do when you redesign your website is to run an SEO audit. This will help you understand the current status of your website’s SEO rank. That way, you’ll know what level of effectiveness the new version should strive for.

Google Analytics is a great tool for understanding your current SEO status. It can show you which of your web pages are the highest performing when it comes to SEO. So, you’ll definitely want to keep these pages in the website redesign. 

Perhaps you feel intimidated by SEO in general. If that’s the case, consider hiring long-term SEO service providers. They’ll help you through the entire website redesign, too. 

Take Inventory of All Your Existing Web Pages

Once you know the starting point of your current SEO status, it’s time to take stock. You’ll want to “crawl” your website to take a detailed inventory of the site’s entire structure. 

Crawling your website will, in essence, generate a sort of outline that it can be broken down into. Each of the main pages on your navigation bar, for example, will be some of the main features in this outline structure. Smaller web pages will then branch off of these pages. 

One popular crawling tool that might help you with this task is called Screaming Frog. Not only will Screaming Frog provide you with the final sitemap of all of your web pages. In addition, it will show you which areas need improvement, such as broken links or missing meta tags. 

You should definitely create a backup of all of your website’s data at this stage. This is a crucial component to remember after crawling your site. That way, in the event of a crash or error during the redesign, you’re not actually losing any of the important information. 

Redesign the New Website on a New URL – Not the Old One

Another safeguard when redesigning your website is to handle the creation itself on a completely different URL. This doesn’t have to be a URL you end up transferring the entire website to. Rather, it’s a dummy website that is just a placeholder for all of the new design work. 

Take your time on the redesign process – and have fun with it! Getting a chance to rebrand your company can be an exciting process. What new values or marketing messages do you want to share with your target consumer audience?

As you start to redesign the website, remember to try and make it somewhat seamless of a transition. You’ll want to maintain the basic structure of the original sitemap you crawled earlier. Doing so will help the previous SEO work stay attached to the new site. 

Once all of the design work is complete, it’s time to transfer all of that creative energy to the correct URL. Congratulations! Your new website is live.

Conduct a Thorough SEO Audit of the New Site

The next part of the website redesign SEO checklist after the transfer is to yet again conduct an audit of the website. This is going to tell you how successful the redesign project was. If you kept all of your previous SEO work intact, your new SEO rank shouldn’t be any lower than what it was before the redesign. 

In fact, your new SEO rank should be even better than before. You should have taken the chance of a redesign to incorporate even stronger SEO content.

While this takes a little bit of research and a well-trained skillset, it’s the best use of your entire redesign project. This is yet another reason that leaving a website redesign to professional experts might be in your best interest. Make the most of this marketing investment. 

Test All the Ins and Outs of Your New Website Redesign

Now that your new website is live, you need to test every piece of it you can. In other words, you need to click every button possible on the site. 

Make this a thorough and detailed task because you don’t want to miss anything that an online user might find instead. Start from the website’s home page, and head to every single nook and cranny of the website to make sure everything is in tip-top shape. 

Verify Your Website on Google and Set Up the Search Console

After the new website has officially been launched, there are a couple more steps to take. You still want to ensure that everything behind-the-scenes with Google is still as SEO-friendly as possible. 

Take the time to verify the website and set up the Google Search Console. This platform will be necessary for evaluating the long-term success of your brand new website. 

Google has so many crucial resources for businesses like yours. If you want to optimize your Local SEO, for instance, you’ll work directly with Google to make your website stand out. That way, when people in your geographical area search for your business’s products or services, you’ll be visible to them. 

Keep an Eye on the New Website 

You’ve redesigned your website and run a new SEO audit. You’ve tested each web page and link to make sure nothing’s broken on the new design. 

Still, sometimes website redesigns take time to become free of all glitches and errors. It’s important that you continue to keep an eye on the new website for the next few weeks. If something seems out of order, you want to catch it before it becomes more of a problem down the line. 

Only Work With Website Redesign and SEO Services You Can Trust

If you think you’re in over your head when it comes to redesigning your website, don’t worry. There are expert SEO and website design services available to take over the redesign on your behalf. It’s up to you, though, to do your research and ensure you’re only hiring a business you can trust. 

One thing you should think about is checking out previous work of your potential SEO service. If they’re reputable, they should have a portfolio of previous work available on their website. This could give you great insight regarding what level of design quality you could expect for your own website. 

Hire SEO Experts When You’re Ready to Invest in a Website Redesign

If you want to ensure your website maintains its SEO rank during a website redesign, don’t worry. Our team of experts knows all about redesigning a website without losing any critical SEO components behind the scenes. 

Plus, we can help continue your SEO efforts to ensure your online consumer base can find your website at any time. For this reason, we encourage you to check out the rest of our website to see how our services could benefit your business. 

When you’re ready to invest in a better website and marketing strategy, we’re here to meet your unique needs. Start by inquiring about our website redesign services to get started today.