Webmarketing123: 5 SEO Tips for Successfully Navigating a Website Redesign-09-08-2011
1. 5 SEO Tips for Successfully Navigating a Website Redesign
Strategies for staying one step ahead of the rest
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2. Housekeeping Items
Are the slides available?
Yes! Please email seo@webmarketing123.com
We want to hear from you!
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Want to learn more?
Contact us for a free site analysis. Details at end of
webinar.
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3. Webinar Agenda
Complete a Full SEO Site Audit
1 Baseline your website, including crawl rate and indexation of your site’s pages
Identify Pages That Bring Traffic
2 Sustain the SEO value of keyword phrases that are driving traffic to your site
Develop Proper Navigation & Linking Structure
3 Minimize the impact of URL changes while implementing redirects accordingly
Manage Your Inbound Links
4 Redirect inbound links to your new pages and URLs
What to Look for in a New CMS
5 Select a CMS that will preserve and enable SEO-friendly elements of your site
#wm123
@bradleywjoe
4. Webinar Agenda
Complete a Full SEO Site Audit
1 Baseline your website, including crawl rate and indexation of your site’s pages
Identify Pages That Bring Traffic
2 Sustain the SEO value of keyword phrases that are driving traffic to your site
Develop Proper Navigation & Linking Structure
3 Minimize the impact of URL changes while implementing redirects accordingly
Manage Your Inbound Links
4 Redirect inbound links to your new pages and URLs
What to Look for in a New CMS
5 Select a CMS that will preserve and enable SEO-friendly elements of your site
#wm123
@bradleywjoe
5. 1 Complete a Full SEO Site Audit
Examine your site pages indexed on the search engines
• Search on Google or Bing:
Site:domainname.com
• Identify how many pages are
being indexed
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6. 1 Baseline How Often Your Site is Crawled
Make sure site navigation links can be followed
• Check your cache to view crawl frequency
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7. 1 Use Webmaster Tools for Crawler Stats
Compare against Google’s Webmaster Tools
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8. Webinar Agenda
Complete a Full SEO Site Audit
1 Baseline your website, including crawl rate and indexation of your site’s pages
Identify Pages That Bring Traffic
2 Sustain the SEO value of keyword phrases that are driving traffic to your site
Develop Proper Navigation & Linking Structure
3 Minimize the impact of URL changes while implementing redirects accordingly
Manage Your Inbound Links
4 Redirect inbound links to your new pages and URLs
What to Look for in a New CMS
5 Select a CMS that will preserve and enable SEO-friendly elements of your site
#wm123
@bradleywjoe
9. 2 Identify Pages That Bring Traffic
How Do Keyword Phrases Affect Your User Experience?
Visitor Bounce Rate?
• Relevancy
Visitor Time on Site?
• Engagement
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10. 2 Identify Pages That Bring Traffic
Keyword Research
• 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
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11. 2 Evaluate Your Best Traffic Driving Terms
Analytics & AdWords
Keywords that drive ORGANIC traffic:
Keywords that drive PAID conversions:
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12. 2 Reuse Important Content
If you have good content, why not recycle it?
• 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
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13. Webinar Agenda
Complete a Full SEO Site Audit
1 Baseline your website, including crawl rate and indexation of your site’s pages
Identify Pages That Bring Traffic
2 Sustain the SEO value of keyword phrases that are driving traffic to your site
Develop Proper Navigation & Linking Structure
3 Minimize the impact of URL changes while implementing redirects accordingly
Manage Your Inbound Links
4 Redirect inbound links to your new pages and URLs
What to Look for in a New CMS
5 Select a CMS that will preserve and enable SEO-friendly elements of your site
#wm123
@bradleywjoe
14. 3 Develop Navigation & Linking Structure
Minimize the impact of URL changes
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15. 3 Are URLs Changing?
Use 301 Redirects
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16. 3 Are URLs Changing?
Use 301 Redirects
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17. 3 Develop Navigation & Linking Structure
Adding New Pages
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
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18. 3 Develop Navigation & Linking Structure
Removing 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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19. 3 Develop Navigation & Linking Structure
404 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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20. Webinar Agenda
Complete a Full SEO Site Audit
1 Baseline your website, including crawl rate and indexation of your site’s pages
Identify Pages That Bring Traffic
2 Sustain the SEO value of keyword phrases that are driving traffic to your site
Develop Proper Navigation & Linking Structure
3 Minimize the impact of URL changes while implementing redirects accordingly
Manage Your Inbound Links
4 Redirect inbound links to your new pages and URLs
What to Look for in a New CMS
5 Select a CMS that will preserve and enable SEO-friendly elements of your site
#wm123
@bradleywjoe
21. 4 Manage Inbound Links
Review Incoming Links
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
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@bradleywjoe
22. 4 Manage Inbound Links
Use a Redirect
Full SEO value will be
Wall Street Journal Link transferred to your new
page over time!
Old Site Page New Site Page
In 3-6 months, the
search engine spiders
will learn to go straight
to the new page
#wm123
@bradleywjoe
23. Webinar Agenda
Complete a Full SEO Site Audit
1 Baseline your website, including crawl rate and indexation of your site’s pages
Identify Pages That Bring Traffic
2 Sustain the SEO value of keyword phrases that are driving traffic to your site
Develop Proper Navigation & Linking Structure
3 Minimize the impact of URL changes while implementing redirects accordingly
Manage Your Inbound Links
4 Redirect inbound links to your new pages and URLs
What to Look for in a New CMS
5 Select a CMS that will preserve and enable SEO-friendly elements of your site
#wm123
@bradleywjoe
24. 5 Choose a New CMS
Ability to Generate User-Friendly URLs
• Are your URLs fully editable? Best Practices:
• URLs have an effect on rankings 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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25. 5 Choose a New CMS
Ability to Set Unique Page Titles
Page Titles are the most important page ranking factor!
• 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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26. 5 Choose a New CMS
Ability to Set Unique Meta Descriptions
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27. 5 Choose a New CMS
Define H1 Tags and ALT Tags
Define at the page level to allow maximum SEO benefit:
• Layout
• Length
• Content
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28. 5 Choose a New CMS
Define 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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29. 5 Choose a New CMS
Define ALT Tags
ALT Tags should be set at the page-level, not image library level for
maximum SEO benefit.
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30. 5 Choose a New CMS
Control & Access Robots.txt file
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31. 5 Choose a New CMS
Control & Access Robots.txt file
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32. Key Takeaways
• 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
#wm123
@bradleywjoe
34. Contact Us about Qualifying for a Free Digital Marketing Analysis
Thank you for your attendance today!
Custom Analysis includes:
-Competitive Report: find out where you rank against your top
competitors and what tactics they’re employing
-Opportunity Analysis: learn how to improve your Digital Marketing
Strategy and see how much opportunity is available for your company
-Website Analytics: detailing the keywords, sources, and referrals that
visitors are using to discover your website
- Search Engine Friendliness Report: crawl-ability analysis of your site
Please contact:
seo@webmarketing123.com
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@bradleywjoe