Don’t Let a Redesign Hurt Your Rankings

Redesigning your website is an exciting move, but it can also be risky business for your Search Engine ranking (SEO) if you don’t plan. You’ve invested time and money in building your online visibility. The last thing you want is to lose traffic because of a flashy new homepage. The good news? You can have both style and substance.

Here’s how to redesign your website without losing SEO, and maybe even improve your rankings in the process.

Audit Your Current Website Performance

Before you touch a single thing, start with an SEO audit. Identify what’s already working by reviewing:

• Top-performing pages
• Current keyword rankings 
• Backlinks and crawl data 

This is the foundation for a smart, SEO-friendly website redesign.

These websites offer tools to help with this.

Google Analytics | Google Search Console
Sitebulb | Screaming Frog SEO Spider

Create a Redirect Strategy for Old URLs

If any URLs (pages) are changing during the redesign, don’t leave users and search engines hanging. Create 301 redirects from every old URL to its new counterpart. This maintains link equity and ensures your site visitors find what they’re looking for.

Keep the Content That’s Performing

Don’t delete your high-ranking blog posts or landing pages during a redesign just because they feel outdated. If they bring traffic, they deserve a makeover, not a funeral. Refresh headlines, format for readability, and update the content, but keep the URLs when possible.

Protect and Optimize Metadata

Redesigns often wipe out meta titles, meta descriptions, and image alt text. These details are small but mighty in the eyes of search engines. Use an SEO plugin (like Yoast SEO) to ensure all your pages are properly tagged and optimized.

Use Proper Heading Structure

Stick with one <h1> per page, and nest <h2>, <h3>, and <h4> in logical order. This helps Google understand your content hierarchy and improves accessibility.

Make Sure Your New Site Is Mobile-Optimized

Google uses mobile-first indexing, which means your mobile site is the one it cares about most. Your redesign should work flawlessly on phones and tablets.

Test Thoroughly Before Launch

Don’t let broken links or missing pages sneak into your redesign. Before going live:

• Crawl the site for broken links
• Validate all redirects
• Submit your new XML sitemap to Google Search Console
• Test forms, navigation, and page load speed

Use a staging environment to test everything without affecting your live site.

Monitor SEO Performance After Launch

Once your new site is live, keep a close eye on performance. Tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console will show you:

• Keyword fluctuations
• Traffic drops or gains
• Crawl errors
• Missing pages

If all of this sounds too complex or like a nightmare, call ,  Email Us, or send a message from our Contact page. If you are already a client, know that we are going through these steps when working on your redesign.

If some of the lingo doesn’t make sense. You can check out a previous blog called Cracking the Code that will help define the meanings of some of the words.