How to do an SEO check after a website redesign
A search engine optimization, or SEO, audit will help with any relaunch of a website.
The audit must be planned out and executed in a manner that’s going to help the new structure and design to be better.
Search engines are one of the best ways to bring customers to a site, so an audit and will help focus the site.
With all the aspects looked at, the relaunch of a site is going to go more smoothly and go the direction that is hope for.
Each step must be considered carefully, because rushing it will just give you the same or even new problems drawing in customers.
Look at the traffic
There are plenty of sites that allow for someone to view the traffic that a website receives and all of the other KEY points that you need to know and decide if your website is fully getting it’s full potential.
A small bit of learning using analytic tools is a great way of understanding what works on your website.
Keywords are part of how the search engines will draw in the traffic and any sites will also show how the site’s competition is faring.
Here are some sites that will give you insightful information.
How your visitors see the site
I’ve seen really great website be let down by poor design elements that confuse the user and help them which leads to frustration.
The golden rule is try to explain things as if your explaining it to your computer illiterate grandmother.
One thing that people who code websites sometimes fail to remember is to lean back and actually look at what they have done. Sometimes it isn’t just a need to be professional, but also how it all flows in the eyes of the regular visitor.
There needs to be such things as valid H1 tags to support the page title and searches.
Look through the site and make sure those things that are more clutter than help are gone.
The site should be clean and professional, but still aesthetically pleasing. That helps in SEO because it makes searches faster and will draw in less traffic not looking for what the site does.
How well does the content work
In everyday life, there are people who can tell magnificent stories but never get to the end, where as if they were just blunt from the beginning with the information you needed, you would have been in a better place.
People want their pain solved when searching the internet they want instant answers or they want that product straight away.
That extra content can slow down searches, bring the wrong traffic, all of which could slow down response times.
While a person searches for some interesting facts about Conor Mcgregor, they’re not going to want 20 clicks to find 20 pieces of information, give it to them on one page.
The type optimization will allow for the folks to get exactly what they want without fluff. (You’re not a clickbait site)
Compare, compare, compare
Very rarely is a person who runs a successful website is going to do a relaunch if they are considered the be very best at there niche.
That means an SEO audit should include comparisons on what the new site will look like verses what has proven to work. Keep the things or at least reintroduce them.
Always be on the lookout for new ideas but there are times a person can come up with additional ideas from their competition. If something works, a site administrator can learn from that. Sometimes, people get tunnel vision.
People need to see more of what works to be able to realize what they need to do for themselves. It means taking the time for the research and understanding.
How to bring in social media
A good way to increase visits through SEO is how the site works with social media.
Google is currently putting tweets into searches. Regularly posting relevant tweets and Facebook posts will help in being seen through a search engine.
Many people overlook this, but it has become another way to draw traffic in. Social media was not something considered for an audit before, but now it is important if the website wants to be noticed.
That doesn’t mean that the posts and tweets need to be random thoughts. Staying on point will cause people to become interested without thinking there is clutter.
How many versions are there
Something people may not realise is that there could be more than one way to get to a site.
While thinking it’s practical at the beginning, there may have been a backup mirror site created during production before you launched the new website. It good practice to get that taken down as soon as your happy with the new website.
This would lead to confusion for search engines. Making sure there is only one site that can be reached on the internet will help a company not compete with itself. One way this could occur is if one site has www in front of it and the other does not.
It is a simple check that may get overlooked, especially if there has been multiple people helping in development.
That just means a little bit of a communications break down occurred and needs corrected.
Test with a website crawler
There are many website crawlers available, so look at what each one does.
The crawler will emulate how search engines look at the website.
Looking through the results will allow the administrator to find all the areas that need a little more SEO TLC.
Each page on the site can have the final fixes done after everything else has been done. That means the polish can be applied for the final professional touches for the audit. These will be slow, so will take time.
An audit can make a site relaunch go smoothly.
While the original site may have been professional, there may have been areas where you thought it could of been improved on. Remember search engines don’t care about looks they care about how your website functions. With these steps above you can help the new relaunch go that much smoother and increase your footprint in the digital world.
Some of the steps need to be considered for long term maintenance, but that requires time and patience.
Remember that an audit doesn’t just need to be done at the relaunch, but it is very necessary to be done in the following months
Make sure that there are notes at taken every step so you can compare from one audit to the next.