Redesigning your website isn’t just an exercise in aesthetics. Sure, the purely visual elements of your newly designed website will likely get the most attention, but remember: a great website redesign also requires that you consider (and improve) what’s under the hood.
A flashy exterior doesn’t help much if the actual machine fails to function. If people can’t find your website via search, and if they can’t intuitively navigate through your site’s pages and easily understand what information those pages contain, it doesn’t really matter how beautiful it looks. When it comes to your website redesign, form and function need to be a package deal. So while you should absolutely add those new beautiful CTA buttons, and add that big beautiful hero image on your homepage, don’t forget about what’s happening behind the scenes. In this guide, we’ll cover one particular portion of the less glamorous side of website redesigns: search engine optimization. While the way we think about SEO is always evolving — with the focus now shifting toward optimizing content for the searchers themselves, as opposed to for the search engines — it’s still something you can’t afford to overlook. So without further ado, here are 10 SEO mistakes to avoid during your next website redesign.
1. Not thinking about SEO from the start
2. Not doing an audit of your existing site
3. Failing to identify (and include) commonly searched keywords
4. Not setting up 301 redirects
5. Failing to consider your URL structure
6. Leaving shady backlinks in place
7. Not using responsive design
8. Forgetting to unblock search engines from crawling your site
9. Forgetting to add analytics tracking to your site
10. Failing to think like a human!
