Imagine the potential to refresh your site’s design, enhance its user experience, and improve its performance—all while preserving the SEO rankings you’ve worked so hard to achieve. However, the fear of losing those hard-earned search engine positions can make the process intimidating. Fear not! With a strategic approach and meticulous planning, you can successfully navigate the relaunch and even boost your website’s performance.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll walk you through a step-by-step process to ensure your high-ranking website relaunch is a resounding success. Let’s dive in!
Pre-Launch Steps
Step #1. Let Google Count Your Pages
Before diving into the technical aspects of relaunching your website, it’s important to have a clear understanding of the current state of your website. Start by letting Google count your pages through Google Search Console. This tool provides insight into the number of indexed pages and their status. Check for errors, such as pages blocked by robots.txt, tagged with a noindex tag, or crawl errors. This will help you identify potential issues and ensure that Google finds all important pages.
Step #2. Run a Crawl for Your Website
To get a comprehensive overview of your existing website, use tool like Screaming Frog, Sitebulb, or different web page auditing software program to run a full crawl. This system will map out all of your modern URLs, discover broken hyperlinks, flag replica content material, and highlight other SEO issues. By saving this crawl information, you create a snapshot of your website’s cutting-edge structure and content. This information is priceless for evaluating pre- and post-launch stages, ensuring that no crucial pages or info are misplaced in the transition.
Step #3. Find All the Pages That Rank
Understanding which pages are currently driving traffic is crucial. Utilize SEO tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Google Analytics to identify all the pages that rank well in search engines. These tools provide data on keyword rankings, search traffic, and page performance. Knowing which pages are performing best helps you prioritize them during the relaunch, ensuring that they maintain or even improve their rankings. This step is all about preserving your site’s SEO value by focusing on the most impactful pages.
Step #4. Find the Pages That Have Been Linked to from Other Websites
Backlinks are an extensive factor in search engine optimization, as they act as endorsements from different web sites. Use backlink analysis tools along with Ahrefs or Moz to discover which pages have the maximum inbound hyperlinks. These pages are often your most valuable SEO assets. By figuring out those pages, you can make certain they’re both preserved or properly redirected to maintain their hyperlink equity. This step helps prevent a loss in search rankings due to broken or lost backlinks.
Step #5. Decide: Update or Just Migrate. Preserve or Just Redirect
For each page on your site, you need to decide on the best course of action: update, migrate, preserve, or redirect.
- Pages with valuable content but outdated information should be updated.
- Pages that fit well within the new site structure should be migrated.
- High-performing pages that don’t need changes should be preserved as-is.
- Pages that are no longer relevant should be redirected to avoid losing their SEO value.
Step #6. Set up 301 Redirects
When URLs change at some point of a domain relaunch, it is essential to implement 301 redirects to inform search engines like google that the old URLs have permanently moved to new ones. A 301 redirect passes on the SEO value from the old URL to the new one. Use a redirect mapping tool to make sure all adjustments are appropriately contemplated. Test these redirects thoroughly to make certain these redirects successfully and guide users seamlessly to the new pages.
Step #7. Better Than the Redirect: Reach Out to Website Editors
While 301 redirects are effective, reaching out to website editors who have linked to your old URLs can be even better. Request that they update their links to point directly to the new URLs. This approach helps preserve the link equity more efficiently and avoids potential redirect chains. Building and maintaining relationships with these editors can also provide future opportunities for collaboration and link-building, further enhancing your site’s SEO performance.
Step #8. Check the Robots.txt File
The robots.txt file controls which components of your site are reachable to look engine crawlers. Review and update this record to ensure it correctly displays the new web site structure. Make sure that essential pages are crawlable and that any sensitive or irrelevant areas are appropriately blocked. A well configured robots.txt file ensures that search engines can correctly crawl and index your web site, supporting to keep and enhance your search rankings.
Step #9. Check the Sitemap.xml File
Your sitemap.xml file is a roadmap for search engines like Google and yahoo, guiding them to all your important pages. Update the sitemap to consist of all new URLs and eliminate any obsolete ones. Submit the up-to-date sitemap to Google Search Console and other search engines. This step guarantees that engines like google can discover and index your content efficiently. A well-maintained sitemap is important for search engine optimization, especially during a site relaunch, as it helps search engines understand the new site structure quickly.
Step #10. Make a Nice 404 Page
Despite your best efforts, users may still encounter broken links or missing pages. A well-designed 404 error page can turn a potentially frustrating experience into an opportunity to engage visitors. Include helpful navigation options, a search bar, and links to popular pages to guide users back on track. A user-friendly 404 page reduces bounce rates and keeps visitors engaged, enhancing their overall experience on your site.
Post-Launch Steps
Step #11. Watch Your GA4 (Real-Time Reports and “Page Not Found” Page Visits) After relaunching your website, closely monitoring its performance is critical to ensure everything is functioning as expected and to quickly address any issues that arise. Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is an essential tool in this process. Start by examining the real-time reports to track immediate traffic patterns and user behavior on your newly launched site. Look for significant drops in traffic or unexpected changes in user engagement metrics that might indicate problems with redirects, broken links, or other issues. Pay special attention to the “Page Not Found” (404) visits report. An uptick in 404 errors could signal that some of your 301 redirects are not correctly set up, leading to broken links that frustrate users and harm your SEO.