4 Tips On How To Update A Website
How To Update A Website To Improve Your Ranking In The SERPs
Hi Folks
If you're planning to update or launch a new version of your website you'll need to take some steps to ensure that you don't damage your search engine rankings in the process. When you update your website, especially if you decide to change your domain, these changes can have a negative impact on your SEO for the site. You can avoid these problems by carefully planning the update process. Here is my step-by-step guide to help you do this.
1. Figure Out The Scope Of The Project
The first thing that you'll want to do is start by making a list of all of the URLs that need to be updated (you can use your sitemap to retrieve a list of these pages). Once you have this list, you need to check it to make sure that all of the links are viable links with no broken links or pages that you simply do not want to include in the upgrade.
2. Check Inbound Links
Part of your SEO should be reliant on the inbound links that point to your website. As a result, you will need to perform an inbound link audit that will determine which direct links need to be updated. You should make sure that you contact the website owners for each inbound link and ensure that they update the old links on their site. If its not possible for you to reach everyone because of a large number of links, you should make sure to establish 301 redirects for all of the old links in order to point them to the new URLs on your updated site.
3. Update Your Content
In addition to updating the layout and design of your site, you should also make sure to update the content on your site. Review all of the existing pages to ensure that there's no content that's outdated.
For example, is your current SEO strategy meeting your needs? Check the analytics data for your website to make sure that your current plan is working. You may want to consider updating the keywords that you're targeting on certain low ranking pages.
Although it might be tempting, try to avoid deleting any pages of your site. There may be pages that are having a greater impact on your current rankings than you might assume at first glance. However, if you find duplicate content on your site, do a 301 redirect of the content pages to the correct version of the pages
4. Check Your New Design For Optimization Issues
As you select a new design for your website, make sure that the new theme offers improvements over your previous theme in terms of UX, technical SEO, and more. You should also make sure that your site design is mobile-friendly. If you use a CMS platform, you may also want to consider changing or upgrading. You may find that updating your CMS can provide greater security and SEO benefits.
If you fail to note the importance of a quality site design on your search rankings, you could inadvertently lower your rankings. Therefore, you should choose your new site's design carefully and make sure that you test it with SEO tools in order to uncover any errors or page optimization issues before you launch the updated site.
To finish - by creating a strategic plan to update your website, you can improve your rankings and ensure that the upgrade doesn’t hurt the work that you have done so far.
Ok folks there you have 4 great tips and advice to take heed of before you launch a new site or updating and older one.
Anyone with more tips and advice can of course leave them below via a comment.
Onwards to success and have a great day.
Robert Allan
Recent Comments
54
Thanks very much, Robert. This information is very helpful. I've recently changed the theme of one my sites and still have to work through each page to update the design. One of the main factors is to remove the line under each title as they don't suit the new layout.
Valerie
Hello Valerie and thank you for your visit and comment.
A bit of a pain having to change every page but worth it in the end.
Hope you have been having a great Saturday so far.
Robert
Thank you, Robert.
It's now Sunday morning and we're back on 'normal' time. No doubt, that has nothing to do with today being full of sunshine. Yesterday was freezing cold and dull, just like the middle of winter rather than the middle of Autumn.
I hope all is going well for you :)
Valerie
Your weather is still not as bad as ours.
All this past week we have had snow, sleet and hailstone showers and yesterday and today is been dull, grey and damp.
I'm doing fine as usual but having to play catch up because I didn't have an internet connection for two weeks.
Enjoy your Sunday or is it now Monday where you are?
Robert
Well, that's amazing that you have snow. However, as I write this I remember it snowed heavily in the South Island of NZ in February. Incredible!
I won't take your time with any more comments at present, Robert. I know the feeling when trying to catch up due to no fault of our own.
Enjoy your week ahead :)
Valerie
Great information Robert. Thank you. Just a question if you so choose to accept this mission. Once a website has been indexed and published is there a way of updating that page with new information/content. Thank you. This message will self destruct at sometime or another.
Absolutely no harm in updating a site or its articles once they have been published.
Of course you must be aware of the consequences of the update regarding the effect it could have on the SEO that you implemented to get the rank you already achieved.
Tread carefully Michael.
Robert
Hope I haven't put you off.
I update my articles all the time and especially if/when I find a better keyword than the one that gave me a good rank in the SERPs.
As I have said to another member you will make small changes to your website without really thinking if they will impact on your sites SEO or design.
It pays to be aware of those changes you make Dianne.
Have a great day today and an even better weekend.
Robert
Thank you, Robert, that is a really useful checklist. We don't currently have any plans to make major changes to our website but we know it will happen eventually so we will definitely bookmark this post.
Colette and Philip
Hello C & P and thank you for your visit.
I bet you make some small changes to your site every week if not every day.
Now you have a better understand whether those small changes will have an impact on your site or not.
Enjoy your Friday.
Robert
See more comments
Hi Robert
This is very interesting, in fact I would say that SOE is what I find the most fascinating aspect of website creation. However, I am still at the stage of selecting a domain. What I would like to know is: supposing I chose my name as a domain - michaelmarwick.com. I have read that it would weaken the ranking if I wrote - michael-marwick for instance. Would it perhaps weaken the ranking if I chose - MichaelMarwick.com (ie capitalised the two names)?
I you could help me with that, I think I shall be about ready to choose my domain.
Yours aye
Michael
Hi Michael and thank you for reading my blog.
Hope you went away with a tip or two that will help you in your own online efforts.
An Internet address is only case sensitive for everything after the domain name.
For example, it does not matter if you use uppercase or lowercase with "MichaelMarwick.com," it still reaches the same page. However, when typing the name of the page, file, or directory in the URL, it is case sensitive.
So in a Domain Name it does not matter if you have Capitals in the actual name but anything after that - for example, a post name should be in lower case or search engines will class them as two different pages.
Something to remember when you are publishing online.
Have a good one.
Robert
Hi Robert
This is exactly the kind of distinctive information I was looking for. Thank you, You are sir, to use one of my father's expressions, a "top-notcher!".
Yours aye.
Happy to point you in the right direction Michael.
Onwards And Upwards.
Robert