You had your site shook down to its core, and now you have a shiny new website with a new architecture built on user and industry data. It’s awesome, you think, since Google loves great experiences. In a few days’ time, you think you will rise up in the SERPs and get a good flood of traffic.
So you log into your analytics program to see how well the new site is doing—only to see a dramatic drop in Google traffic. Maybe you are asking yourself, “Why did my website traffic drop after the re-launch? Wasn’t it supposed to make everything better?”
This is an all-too-common scenario, and it stems from the following:
Changes in the Copy
When we say changes to your copy, we are not talking about minor grammatical corrections—we are talking about changes to the primary and secondary topics of your page.
Some SEO companies, however, change the content and don’t pay attention to priority keywords. Keywords in the key areas like the title tag, body, and headers are removed, which make the relevancy score, as well as your site’s rankings, drop. So, it’s important to work with experts like us who understand which keywords and topics have the highest traffic potential, so you don’t remove those keywords from the copy.
Not Doing 301 Redirects
301 redirects are one of the most important things to look out for when redesigning a website. They help direct users to the newly created pages, and direct search engines to rank the new page in place of the old one.
When your SEO agency does not implement 301 redirects, Google will reset the value of the new pages. The old pages will 404 and drop out of SERPs, which could result in a dive in rankings and traffic.
Reorganised Pages
Because Google passes value from one page to the next through internal links, pages will receive more or less of this value depending on where the pages are located in the organisation or “hierarchy” of the site. Pages that are closer to the important pages, such as the home page and category pages, receive more value than those that are more than three clicks away from those pages.
A site redesign and re-launch is always an exciting time for businesses; it can, however, also be fraught with complicated and unexpected technical issues. Do it wrong and you risk losing traffic and profits down the road—do it right and you’ll get an excellent boost in business.
SEO Services Australia will help you avoid pitfalls and give you a site re-design that won’t fall through the cracks.
If you’re ready, let’s talk.
