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Think for a second, what would happen if you had an outdated website?

By Kevin Haynes

Stephen Hawking quotes, “Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change!”  Which indicated the value of moving on with the change. Today, people make an impression of your business based on the look and feel of your website. And mind you, their interests and expectations change with the changing trends. So it is important to continue making modifications with time to keep your audience engaged with your business.

Think for a second, what would happen if you had an outdated website? Well, I believe that the revenue graph for your business will move from ‘doing awesome’ to ‘trying to do okay!’ In simpler terms, the outdated website can create a negative impact on your audience which will be a bonus point for your competitor.

To save you from losing your position in the competitive online world and keep up with your consumers’ needs, their demands and the current market trends, redesigning your website is necessary. A professional WordPress Development Services provider will assure both the aesthetic design and functionality upgrade.

And friends, as much as redesigning your website is important, maintaining your search ranking after the process is also required. Also, if you get careless with your website designing process, all your SEO efforts may go to waste. This blog will help you redesign your website without affecting your SEO rankings.

1. Thorough Website Review 

Just before you redesign your website, take a thorough look at its current condition as this will be your reference point. Since your old website has good search engine rankings, using it as a reference will reduce the chances of losing search ranking during the redesigning process. This is how you can spot the mistakes in the old website and make amendments in the new one.

I would suggest you focus on certain elements of your old website such as search ranking, site architecture, meta descriptions, title tags, URLs, content, and more. These elements can help eliminate the shortcomings of the old site.

2. Switch to a New Host

There can be many reasons for finding a new host such as better speed or uptime for your new website. Well as they say, “better sooner than later!”  If you are planning to switch to a new hosting provider, then redesigning is an ideal opportunity to do so. Remember, your website’s speed is one of the most crucial factors for search engine rankings. To do this, make sure that you choose your provider from the same location as your website.

3. Do Not Discard the ‘Well Ranking’ Content

It is better to keep the content on the pages rank well on search engines as it is on the new website, as any change in that can hurt the rankings of those pages. There is no harm in giving the page a new look but try to keep the content original as much as possible. Make any inevitable changes very carefully in a way that they appear almost insignificant. Maintain the commonly crawled elements by search engines such as H1 to H6 schemes, Meta description, and title tags.

4. Follow the Old Website Architecture

Another good way to preserve your website’s ranking while undergoing the redesigning process is to maintain the old WordPress website architecture. What I mean is, if you change the architecture, you have to build your rank from the start. Make minor changes like improving visuals, color aspects, etc.

The reason behind this is your consumers are habitual of using your old website and changing the entire architecture will confuse them.

5. Last But Not Least, Create 301 Redirects

Don’t you want to make sure that you don’t end up losing the pages that are doing well? If yes, then inform the search engines about the changes by setting up a 301 redirect.

You might lose your ranking due to slight intentional or unintentional changes in the URLs. These errors result in ‘404 Page not found’ error which may result in search penalties. You might think, how 301 redirects help in maintaining your website’s search engine rankings? 301 redirects aid consumers to navigate from the old URL to the new one, hence preventing the 404 error from occurring.

Ready to Redesign?

It is vital to create a modern design that not only matches the trend but is also faster, mobile-friendly, clutter-free and easy-to-use. Outperform the competition, engage with your customers in a better way, and offer the audience what they expect by redesigning your online platform.

It is understood that redesigning while maintaining the search engine ranking is a challenging task. You don’t need to be afraid of it. If you follow the above-explained steps, your website will not undergo any negative impact. Remember that nothing is difficult to achieve once you set your heart and mind on it.  Good Luck!!

Kevin Haynes is a Content Strategist at Brainvire whose passion lies in delivering valuable content to his readers. He explores topics mainly related to web development that includes website design, digital marketing, start-ups business and much more.

Website design stock photo by Georgejmclittle/Shutterstock