Ensuring a site maintains rankings after a re-design

Nearly all organizations need to redesign their site at some point and there are many reasons for this. Whether it is to add extra functionality, to try and increase conversions, or maybe the old design has simply got outdated, redesigns are something that always will happen.

But how you ensure your listings don’t drop after a redesign? Below are a few pointers to help you.

Site Structure
If you change the structure of your site chances are your rankings will fall. Unless it is absolutely essential to change your site structure, then don’t. If you do change page names or structure always remember to 301 re-direct the old page name to the new one, this will help transfer the power of the old pages to the new ones. Be aware though that this can sometimes take some time.

Navigation
The navigation in your site is one of the most important aspects of the site, they allow users to browse round the site easily and pass relevance onto the various sections of your site. When creating your new design try to ensure your navigation is written in text links, rather than flash or JavaScript. Remember that most fancy menus can be recreated using HTML and CSS. If you must use a flash or JavaScript menu, try to place text links to those pages in another navigation located elsewhere on the page.

Content
Chances are if you are only doing a redesign the content in the site will remain the same. Be very careful when changing content in a redesign this could seriously affect your rankings. If you have to change/add new content always check the keyword densities, and try to keep it as close to the old copy as possible.

Meta Tags
Ensure you copy the Meta structures from the old pages, significant value is placed on the content within these tags. It is important that the <title> and <description> Meta tags are copied over exactly, as changing/removing these can have dramatic affects on your rankings.

In Conclusion,
You have probably worked hard to obtain the rankings you are getting, don’t throw this away by rushing the new design, take your time. Ensuring all the SEO elements possible are re-created, will give you the best chance of keeping the rankings, although there are still no guarantees.

Paul
SEO Programmer