Loading...
Answers
MenuIf I am re-developing a large website, do I need to migrate every page in the re-development for best SEO practice?
My client has a massive 188 page website that has very poor UX, is not responsive and has very poor conversion. I am planning the new UI design currently and am confident that we can improve the journey and conversion.
He has a very content rich site. In the new site, should I just preserve the sites that get the most traffic currently and set up re-directs for all the rest? Or should I migrate all the content and just adjust the navigation to make it less overwhelming?
Answers
All your questions predicate/depend on site's monetization strategy.
For example, if current pages all have great SEO traction in SERPs than any site change best be well thought out + in general the HTML structure should...
1) Only fix any existing HTML errors, as reported by the W3C validator.
Never. Ever. Introduce any new HTML errors or site's SEO can circle the drain.
2) Only lower page weight, so the ratio of cruft (non-content) to content, should reduce. So decreased cruft, which will increase content.
For example, converting a well SEO'ed WordPress site to use a Genesis theme can potentially destroy all your site's SEO traction, because Genesis (at least last time I checked) can produce a site which is 98% cruft + 2% content, due to all the CSS classing + attributes + other non-content junk injected into pages.
When I take on a project for one of my clients like this, first I require them to host with me...
Because wrestling with broken hosting introduces so much noise into analysis, I just refuse to deal with slow + glitchy hosting anymore.
Next I have my client walk through their entire money flow, end to end.
After I understand site monetization strategy, then we work through small increments of change, constantly tracking when GoogleBot visits the site + how page indexing is effected in searches after a 48 hour period.
If it's a hobby site, all this is overkill.
If the site measures profits by the hour or minute, then any change can potentially zero out all income, so in this case best to proceed slowly, with great care.
A redesign is a good opportunity to evaluate the pages of the site and what they are doing. You will need data for this such as recent Google Analytics data. Any page that you decide to get rid of because of low traffic to the page you will want to redirect to the page above it, or a consolidated page that contains similar information. You can also allow the pages to 404 for a few weeks to let Google know for sure that you have rid the site of them. Depending on how high traffic of a site it is, Google may not be crawling the entire site anyway.
With that said, I would not worry about including all 188 pages unless all 188 pages are providing value. A large portion of most websites are doing more harm than good when it comes to SEO because of the low value of the pages. Google looks at that. There is a difference between a site being content rich and content saturated. Hope that makes sense.
A few SEO related things to think about:
Does the page have inbound links?
Does the page have organic traffic?
Does it rank on the first page of Google for any queries?
If you answer yes to any of the above questions you need to think about the cost of removing the page. Yes, you can 301 redirect them to a new page, BUT if you want to preserve the rankings, you should keep the page as similar (from a content perspective) as possible.
If you are making major updates to the site architecture, you should look at Google's recommendations for moving a site with URL changes: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/34437
This will also help you keep your rankings.
Related Questions
-
Can a WordPress site be converted into an iOS app?
Be careful when simply wrapping things into a mobile app. This can backfire on you and you could be presented with some very harsh edge cases. PHP isn't going to be encapsulated so much as the HTML/CSS/JavaScript. So keep in mind your mobile application could likely be in a position of requiring an online connection to work (because it must interface with your existing hosted WordPress site). This could also mean your hosting solution needs to be evaluated to ensure you can handle any increased traffic (and those traffic patterns could be different when coming from a mobile app that perhaps loads things the user doesn't see right away, accesses content that may not be cached, etc.). You want to ensure your server doesn't go down because then your mobile app would be "down" as well. That said... Things like Phonegap (web views) are a wonderful idea for utility apps because the performance is good enough for those (and hey even some games) and they end up being easily ported across many mobile operating systems. I would look into Phonegap, Appgyver (a new and totally awesome one because parts of it will utilize the native OS and your app will feel more responsive), Appcelerator Titanium, and perhaps even the new Famo.us one. Also take a look at the Ionic Framework for some further ideas about mobile UI and what you can do with these web view style apps.TM
-
How Google can index/reindex my page as quickest as possible, as and where there is some change happen in the content?
Hi, Your site is a Q&A so I presume that every time someone create a new Question it will generate a unique URL for that. Indepentend if you have or not an answer you want Google to crawl and index your site as quick as possible to start to analyzing the new page and bring traffic to it. The best way to expedite this "re-crawling" is to use a ping service that you can trigger after your user answer the question. PS: If you site is updated frequently you shouldn't have a problem with crawling, because Google usually identify this type of website really quick. Drop me a call is free for this week. Best,YM
-
Will redesigning a website (ground up) ruin the search ranking of a site?
TL;DR -> Yes you will risk it if you don't perform a proper audit and migration from the original platform. Any type of architecture changes can 100% ruin your SEO if you are not migrating content and topics correctly. Many people assume this is limited to URI structure but underestimate the power of Topical hierarchy and the content, internal linking and URI structure which play a crucial role into any migration effort. If you have any questions about the migration process, give me a shout. Decent free migration checklist: https://searchengineland.com/site-migration-seo-checklist-dont-lose-traffic-286880TM
-
I want to build a expert marketplace directory listing website, which wordpress theme I should use?
Checkout is a high-quality WordPress theme by Array built for marketplaces of any kind. https://arraythemes.com/themes/checkout-wordpress-theme/ Let me know if you have any questions about implementation, and I'd be happy to setup a call.LL
-
What is the best platform to create a member based CMS website? (e.g. Squarespace)
Most of my friends use www.wordpress.org and http://member.wishlistproducts.com/ to create their membership sites. Hope that helps.DM
the startups.com platform
Copyright © 2025 Startups.com. All rights reserved.