Going through a website revamp every now and then is a great idea, especially when your website is outdated and not performing. It gives you an instant boost to improve your visibility in Google, providing an edge on your competition. A website revamp is also a chance to improve the look, feel and functionality of your site, which can help improve your conversion rate at the same time. If you’re considering a website revamp, then now is the time to take the plunge. You’ll gain more organic visitors, get a leg up on your competition and increase your conversion rates. Sounds good, right?!
Before you go ahead and launch your revamped website, it’s important to make sure everything has been set up and is functioning correctly. In this article, we will take you through all the elements you need to check over before hitting that live button. When you do launch your new website, you can be 100% confident it is set up for success.
Check the website speed
One of the most important factors when it comes to SEO and how Google ranks your site is the speed. Whether you have moved to another web hosting provider during your revamp, or significantly changed the look of your website, it always helps to recheck your website speed and make sure your site is operating at optimal performance.
There are a number of different tools you can use to carry this out. You can check out this one from PageSpeed Insights and give it a go.
Check your URLs
If you change your URLs during a revamp, it’s important to make sure all your old website pages point to the new ones. This is very simple and easy to do with 301 redirects, and it ensures your Google rankings don’t drop.
When someone goes to the old URL, they will be redirected to the new one, which will also help with your conversion rates.
Check your internal links
Just like the redirects above, it’s also important to check your internal links are all up to date. If you have changed URLs, then your old posts may be linking to old URLs that no longer exist.
This will not only damage your ranking in Google, but also results in a bad user experience for any visitors to your website. It’s time-consuming, but important to head back through your website and make sure all the links are correct.
Check your SSL certificate
Another mistake many businesses make when migrating their website is unintentionally breaking the SSL certificate. This is vital when it comes to your Google rankings.
It essentially provides authentication to Google and enables an encrypted connection to your site. You are showing proof of ownership of the domain at the time the certificate was issued.
Make sure all forms and other elements are working
It helps to go through your site and pretend you’re a user. Click on the different links and even go through the process of checking out and signing up to the newsletter, plus filling out the contact forms. This is the best way to ensure all the forms and elements are functioning as they should be.
Failing to do this can result in critical errors on your site, which can turn off potential customers and cost you a fair bit as a result.
Copy over your Google Analytics
When you launch your new site, make sure it has your Google Analytics tracking code set up on it. If not, you’ll head over a couple of weeks after your site is live to check how it’s going, only to find no data was captured for that period, which can be extremely frustrating.
Prepare a 404 page
It’s often inevitable that your customers will come across a broken page on your site. It happens! But that doesn’t mean you can’t prepare for it. It helps to create a specific 404 page, so if your user does come to a broken link, they’re encouraged to head back to your website to find what they’re looking for.
This custom page can make all the difference between gaining or losing a customer. You can set up a search box, so your customer can go ahead and type in what they’re looking for and get redirected back to your website. It’s simple and easy, and offers great results.
Migrate your hard work
All those meta descriptions and keywords you had set up on your old site, should be migrated across to your new one. While these aren’t as essential for SEO anymore, they do help when it comes to Google searches. The meta description is what shows up when people type your keywords and can determine whether or not they click through to your site, so it’s very helpful to have.
Migrating them over from your old site can save you a lot of time having to rewrite them from scratch.
Back up your old site
Finally, before you go ahead and migrate over to your fresh, new revamped site, take a full backup of your old site. You never know when it might come in handy. You may want to head back and refer to something, or find an element from your old site was missed on your new one. Either way, it can’t hurt to have a back up saved that you can refer back to.
Setting up and launching a new, revamped site is a great move for your business. It gives you a fresh start to improve your website’s visibility and useability, resulting in increased Google rankings and higher conversion rates. It’s simply important to make sure you have crossed off this checklist before going live.
Let’s turn your visions into a digital success
If you’re looking for a helping hand when it comes to your website redesign, then speak to our team of web design experts at Design Point. We can handle your migration from start to finish and ensure that by the time your site goes live, everything is in working order and ready to give you that much-needed SEO boost. Get in contact with us to get started on your new website and convert more users today.