One of the biggest misconceptions among website owners is that SEO only needs to be done once. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case.
Numerous fractions are altered during redesign including code and pages. If they are not properly handled, it can negatively impact the website’s SEO[1] and affect the long-term growth of the site. If done correctly, however, redesigning a website can also increase your SEO strength.
In today’s article, we will go through a detailed guide on how to redesign your website without affecting SEO.
Step 1: list of all pages from the old website
The first step is to download the URL structure of your website. Redesigning means a lot of changes which will also affect the URL re-structure. It is important therefore to back it up otherwise you run the risk of impacting your website ranking.
You can use plugins to get the URL structure. If you are using Yoast SEO plugin[2], you can crawl the website and then download the updated sitemap.
Step 2: the redesign needs to be done on a temporary URL
Never do the redesign on your existing website. It can cause visitor issues and give you problems in the long run. The best approach is to copy your site and set it up into a temporary URL. Once done; you can start making changes to it. An alternative would be to switch the domain once all the required redesign changes are made.
If there is a potential for you to struggle with this, you can always get help from your developer. Another option would be for a hosting company to do it for you. It is important for you to ping your