It doesn’t matter how cutting edge your website was when you first launched it, at some point, it will start to look stale or outdated, or maybe it just no longer meets what Google is looking for and you’ve started to drop down the rankings.
It’s at this point that companies often decide to refresh their existing website or build an entirely new one.
If this sounds like your scenario, and you’ve recently launched a redesign, you were likely excited to see your brand new or reworked website and looking forward to more traffic, conversions, and sales.
And when everything is done in the right way, those are exactly the type of results you’ll get.
Unfortunately, this often isn’t the case and many website owners will notice a dip in traffic. In fact, a business we spoke to recently said that their stylish new website had caused a dip in traffic that saw them drop from 20 leads per month down to only 1 or 2.
If this sounds like your situation, then don’t worry! We’re going to outline the things that are most likely to have caused your dip and what you can do to resolve them.
1. Redirects
Easily the most important thing to consider when launching your new website is how you’re going to redirect people from your old one.
This is easier if your website URL stays the same, but unless your website pages stay exactly the same as your old website…you’re going to have to make sure that the pages that no longer exist point towards relevant pages on your new website.
If you’re using an entirely new domain, you’ll have to redirect the entire website page by page to ensure you don’t lose out on any traffic and so that Google can connect the old pages to the new ones.
2. The layout of your website
Changing the layout of a website can cause problems if we don’t let Google know what the new structure is. Submitting the new structure to Google (via Search Console) and making sure that when Google indexes (scans) your website it can find all the pages you want it to is important. As a result, if you don’t set up a sitemap for your new site and upload it to Google it’s likely to negatively impact where your website ranks.
3. Your content
Good content plays a huge part in ranking well and ensuring that traffic keeps pouring in, and content is also something that usually gets updated when a website is rebuilt. This is only a problem if the new content is written with one eye on the target keywords and phrases you want your website to show up for.
Unfortunately, this problem can be the hardest one to fix, as translating what worked well with your old website to a new design can be tough.
So, you’ve missed one of the areas identified above, and you’re seeing a drop in traffic as a result.
That’s great! Why? These problems are all fixable, and it’s unlikely that the damage done can’t be reversed. There is no reason why your web developer or a good digital marketing agency couldn’t quickly fix them and get your rankings and traffic back on track.
If you’re interested in talking to us about this, email me, Kerri at [email protected] or call 01925 755960.
