Another fitting end to a great day of #SEOWeek! This third installment from our experts focused on how important user experience is on a website. If you missed out or need to hit the refresh button, here’s a helpful summary:
What type of website changes should we be concerned?
Levels of organic impact depend on the type of change being implemented on a website. Just because you hired a fancy web designer doesn’t mean he/she has your back when it comes to SEO. Major changes like platform migrations, redesigns, and switching to mobile-first, deserve detailed plans and preparations so you don’t lose out on traffic.
Determine if you’re proving the best user experience for searchers
Result? Search engines will like you more. User experience is an umbrella term that covers major elements like mobile-first design and easy website navigation. Heat Maps are a great way for you to know how visitors interact with your site. You can see data such as what links are getting clicked on the most, what’s being ignored, etc. The insights you’ll gain will be a tremendous step towards increasing conversions!
Importance of Planning and Preparation
Website redesigns and migrations involve multiple teams that have different roles and responsibilities. For example, don’t assume the web development team knows how to optimize the site for SEO. Don’t be alarmed, but you can expect to see a 15 to 20% decrease in traffic when doing one of these site changes!
How to Properly Plan and Prepare
It’s no surprise, but planning ahead with your SEO experts as early as possible is key. You should review all major SEO elements and identify at what point in the redesign process they should be addressed. You should also communicate across all departments consistently to ensure any changes made on the development side have not impacted the SEO side. Be aware that not all tasks will be incorporated into your timeline for the launch!
Last but not least, each phase of web development changes should have a clear and concise pre-launch, launch, and post-launch agenda. To help make the transition run smoother, download our Free Website Migration Checklist!
Join us tomorrow for our last session of #SEOWeek – Building a Winning Retail SEO Strategy!
