webmarketing123: 5 seo tips for successfully navigating a website redesign-09-08-2011

5 SEO Tips for Successfully Navigating a Website RedesignStrategies for staying one step ahead of the rest

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Housekeeping Items

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1 Complete a Full SEO Site AuditBaseline your website, including crawl rate and indexation of your site’s pages

2 Identify Pages That Bring TrafficSustain the SEO value of keyword phrases that are driving traffic to your site

3 Develop Proper Navigation & Linking StructureMinimize the impact of URL changes while implementing redirects accordingly

4 Manage Your Inbound LinksRedirect inbound links to your new pages and URLs

5 What to Look for in a New CMSSelect a CMS that will preserve and enable SEO-friendly elements of your site

Webinar Agenda

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1 Complete a Full SEO Site AuditBaseline your website, including crawl rate and indexation of your site’s pages

2 Identify Pages That Bring TrafficSustain the SEO value of keyword phrases that are driving traffic to your site

3 Develop Proper Navigation & Linking StructureMinimize the impact of URL changes while implementing redirects accordingly

4 Manage Your Inbound LinksRedirect inbound links to your new pages and URLs

5 What to Look for in a New CMSSelect a CMS that will preserve and enable SEO-friendly elements of your site

Webinar Agenda

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• Search on Google or Bing: Site:domainname.com

• Identify how many pages are being indexed

1 Complete a Full SEO Site AuditExamine your site pages indexed on the search engines

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• Check your cache to view crawl frequency

1 Baseline How Often Your Site is CrawledMake sure site navigation links can be followed

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Compare against Google’s Webmaster Tools

1 Use Webmaster Tools for Crawler Stats

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1 Complete a Full SEO Site AuditBaseline your website, including crawl rate and indexation of your site’s pages

2 Identify Pages That Bring TrafficSustain the SEO value of keyword phrases that are driving traffic to your site

3 Develop Proper Navigation & Linking StructureMinimize the impact of URL changes while implementing redirects accordingly

4 Manage Your Inbound LinksRedirect inbound links to your new pages and URLs

5 What to Look for in a New CMSSelect a CMS that will preserve and enable SEO-friendly elements of your site

Webinar Agenda

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2 Identify Pages That Bring TrafficHow Do Keyword Phrases Affect Your User Experience?

Visitor Bounce Rate?

• Relevancy

Visitor Time on Site?

• Engagement

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• Are enough people searching on your target keyword phrases?

• Identify the traffic on each keyword

• Carry the keyword phrases to your new site that draw the most traffic

2 Identify Pages That Bring TrafficKeyword Research

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2 Evaluate Your Best Traffic Driving TermsAnalytics & AdWords

Keywords that drive ORGANIC traffic:

Keywords that drive PAID conversions:

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• Continue to churn out fresh content for search engine spiders

• Add more content that includes your keyword phrases and is composed in a natural writing style

• Work to engage your visitors in your products and services:

• Blogs

• Press Releases

• Articles, Whitepapers, and More

2 Reuse Important ContentIf you have good content, why not recycle it?

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1 Complete a Full SEO Site AuditBaseline your website, including crawl rate and indexation of your site’s pages

2 Identify Pages That Bring TrafficSustain the SEO value of keyword phrases that are driving traffic to your site

3 Develop Proper Navigation & Linking StructureMinimize the impact of URL changes while implementing redirects accordingly

4 Manage Your Inbound LinksRedirect inbound links to your new pages and URLs

5 What to Look for in a New CMSSelect a CMS that will preserve and enable SEO-friendly elements of your site

Webinar Agenda

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3 Develop Navigation & Linking StructureMinimize the impact of URL changes

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3 Are URLs Changing?Use 301 Redirects

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3 Are URLs Changing?Use 301 Redirects

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What needs to happen: Google needs to know you have a new page

How to accomplish:

• Carefully structure internal linking

• Create content silos

• Establish crawling pathways through a clear navigation structure

3 Develop Navigation & Linking StructureAdding New Pages

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3 Develop Navigation & Linking StructureRemoving Old Pages

What needs to happen: Google needs to know to NOT visit the old page

How to accomplish:

• Create 301 Redirect of subpages to the homepage unless there is a better target page

• Direct search engine spiders to the new pages

• Establish crawling pathways through a clear navigation structure

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3 Develop Navigation & Linking Structure404 Error Page

• It is very important to set up an effective 404 Error page before launch

• If you make a mistake on your redirects, you will have a safety net

• This page will catch all the redirects you may have missed

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1 Complete a Full SEO Site AuditBaseline your website, including crawl rate and indexation of your site’s pages

2 Identify Pages That Bring TrafficSustain the SEO value of keyword phrases that are driving traffic to your site

3 Develop Proper Navigation & Linking StructureMinimize the impact of URL changes while implementing redirects accordingly

4 Manage Your Inbound LinksRedirect inbound links to your new pages and URLs

5 What to Look for in a New CMSSelect a CMS that will preserve and enable SEO-friendly elements of your site

Webinar Agenda

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Questions to Ask:

• Which outside links are bringing targeted traffic?

• Are the links boosting my rankings?

What to Do:

• Apply 301 redirects on the pages where the links are directed

• Important to sustain the SEO value from these inbound links

4 Manage Inbound LinksReview Incoming Links

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4 Manage Inbound LinksUse a Redirect

Wall Street Journal Link

Old Site Page New Site Page

In 3-6 months, the search engine spiders will learn to go straight to the new page

Full SEO value will be transferred to your new page over time!

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1 Complete a Full SEO Site AuditBaseline your website, including crawl rate and indexation of your site’s pages

2 Identify Pages That Bring TrafficSustain the SEO value of keyword phrases that are driving traffic to your site

3 Develop Proper Navigation & Linking StructureMinimize the impact of URL changes while implementing redirects accordingly

4 Manage Your Inbound LinksRedirect inbound links to your new pages and URLs

5 What to Look for in a New CMSSelect a CMS that will preserve and enable SEO-friendly elements of your site

Webinar Agenda

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5 Choose a New CMSAbility to Generate User-Friendly URLs

• Are your URLs fully editable?

• URLs have an effect on rankings

Best Practices:

1) Short URLs

2) Include relevant keyword terms

Any restrictions on URL management in a CMS would hinder your site’s SEO performance

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Page Titles are the most important page ranking factor!

5 Choose a New CMSAbility to Set Unique Page Titles

• Include keywords at the start of your page title

• Use a call to action

• Page Titles affect Click-through rates (CTR)

Bad Example!

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5 Choose a New CMSAbility to Set Unique Meta Descriptions

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5 Choose a New CMSDefine H1 Tags and ALT Tags

Define at the page level to allow maximum SEO benefit:

• Layout

• Length

• Content

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5 Choose a New CMSDefine H1 Tags and ALT Tags

Define at the page level to allow maximum SEO benefit:

• Layout

• Length

• Content

Pick a CMS where H1 tags will not affect the navigation or menu system

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5 Choose a New CMSDefine ALT Tags

ALT Tags should be set at the page-level, not image library level for maximum SEO benefit.

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5 Choose a New CMSControl & Access Robots.txt file

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5 Choose a New CMSControl & Access Robots.txt file

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• Undergo a full SEO Site Audit before you begin your redesign project

• Determine which pages bring traffic to the live site for your keyword phrases

• Develop the navigation and linking structure with SEO value in mind

• Manage inbound links and set redirects to sustain SEO credit from outside

sites

• Choose a CMS that will allow you to maintain SEO-friendly site elements

Key Takeaways

Thank You!

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Thank you for your attendance today!

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