vote up 8 vote down star
2

I have a new client that wants to completely overhaul his website. He has had the same, terribly designed static site on the internet since 1995. It hasn't been updated since 1995. It looks like 1995. It feels like 1995. It behaves like 1995. It also has incredible Google ranking for even the most generic search terms.


The Setup
Being the top result on Google is awesome. Unless your website is so bad that your company looks outdated and small-time and people move on to your competitors who have slicker websites. In this case, having a #1 Google ranking AND a terrible website is probably a net loss in terms of using your internet presence to generate new business. In other words, my client is probably losing business because of his website.

The idea of the redesign is to make the site more visually appealing and easy to navigate. My client wants his website to be a tool for getting people to contact him via phone or email. I plan to accomplish the conversion of website visitor to customer by removing some of the current content that is outdated, unnecessary and distracting to site visitors and replacing it with more concise, relevant information that is easy to consume.


The Problem
I don't want to lose any of my customer's Google juice because of the redesign.


The Questions

  • What are things that I should actively do to maintain my client's Google rankings while redesigning his site?
  • What are things that I should actively avoid doing to maintain my client's Google ranking while redesigning his site?
flag
1  
What the - why was this closed!? – MGOwen Nov 19 at 5:57
1  
Second the question. Where in the Trilogy should SOE and web design questions be asked if not here? How can a question about web sites not fit in one of the three? – CarlF Nov 19 at 6:01
Anybody know how I can dispute the closing of this question? – Kyle Noland Nov 19 at 22:55
Just cross your fingers enough people vote it for reopen! – Wil Nov 20 at 3:02
1  
SEO questions are not allowed on SU. You can try one of the StackExchange sites or DocType. The latter specializes in Web Design, and the former has a few SEO sites already listed – Diago♦ Nov 20 at 5:41

migrated from stackoverflow.com Nov 19 at 5:24

closed as not computer related by Diago♦ Nov 19 at 5:24
Questions on Super User are expected to generally relate to computer software or computer hardware in some way. This question is very far afield from software or hardware.

4 Answers

vote up 9 vote down

A few tips:

  1. Don't change the page URLs if you don't have to. If you do have to, make sure that you have redirects set up for the old URLs to the new ones.

  2. Try to keep the text content parts of the site as similar as possible to the old site. Especially with regards to page titles, header tags & link text.

  3. Try to keep the placement of items relatively the same (e.g. if you have a heading at the top of the page, don't move it to the bottom or a similarly "less important" place)

  4. Don't replace text with images (this is something designers always seem to want to do).

Generally speaking, you'll want to make it look nicer to a person without changing the way it looks to Google at all. If you could do it all with CSS, that would be perfect :)

link|flag
If you do replace text with images, keep the text in, but hidden with some absolute positioning trickery. Or, y'know, use text links. – Phoshi Nov 18 at 21:11
vote up 4 vote down

Whatever you do, make sure that anyone who links to the site right now will still have a valid link once you're done, even if it just redirects to the homepage.

link|flag
Cool URIs don't change. w3.org/Provider/Style/URI – jleedev Nov 18 at 20:54
vote up 3 vote down

Here are a few resouces to check out before you start to redesign your clients site:

Oops, I Redesigned My Website

How To Redesign Website And Not Screw Up Your SEO

Best SEO Practices During A Website Redesign

Good luck with your project.

link|flag
vote up 1 vote down

Pick up an SEO book. It'll be extremely difficult to describe everything you need to consider in a StackOverflow answer. I recommend

Art of SEO: Theory and Practice

http://www.amazon.com/Art-SEO-Theory-Practice/dp/0596518862/ref=sr%5F1%5F9?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1258577420&sr=8-9

I'm reading it now and find it very informative.

link|flag
I will pick up a copy. Are there any pearls of wisdom you have picked up that apply to my situation? I'm not really trying to create Google Juice, I've already got it. I just don't want to destroy it while redesigning the site. – Kyle Noland Nov 18 at 20:58

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.