Avoid Making These Mistakes During Your Next Website Redesign

In today’s digital world, your website is your most important marketing tool. Now and then, it may be necessary to completely refresh it. While doing so, though, it’s important not to reverse the progress you’ve already made with your existing site.

Here are five mistakes to be wary of in your next website redesign:

1. Deleting or Renaming Pages Without Redirects

You might have big plans to revitalize your site’s structure but remember – your current pages could already have search engine clout. To guard against a precipitous drop in your search ranks, be sure to use redirects, driving traffic from nonfunctional old URLs to fresh new ones.

2. Failing to Perform a Complete Function Check

Your redesign isn’t really “done” until everything is functional. Be sure your contact forms are working, search gives expected results, and your e-commerce shop performs as planned. Also verify “behind the scenes” features such as analytics are active.

3. Forgetting to Include Image SEO

A big part of redesigning a website is updating its appearance. Photos and illustrations are often a huge part of this but beware. Generic titles like “image1.jpg” can detract from search rankings. Always optimize image filenames based on the target keywords of the page in question.

4. Not Testing Out Load Times

Google considers page load times in its rankings. Luckily, it provides the PageSpeed Insights tool free of charge. PageSpeed not only gives you data on your site’s load times but offers tips on the best way to speed things up. Reduce load times as much as you can before going live.

5. Not Optimizing for Mobile

Many decision-makers check out your site on mobile before they sit down at a desktop computer. If your old site wasn’t mobile-friendly, it’s time to take the next step. A responsive Web design is one that automatically adjusts its appearance and navigation to suit the user’s display and input. Many content management systems have built-in responsive options. Likewise, software can be used to convert some existing layouts into a responsive experience.

Website development and digital marketing work hand in hand. To maximize its value, a new site must be built with your marketing plans in mind. Learn more about our B2B Web development services especially for improving your business results.