So, you're doing a website redesign ?
"Why?" is the question I always ask. Unfortunately, I usually get the wrong answer.
However, if you're doing a website redesign in order to increase traffic and generate more leads and sales from your internet marketing activities , than you should continue reading.
The other day I argued that most web design firms don't design and develop websites with business goals in mind . The biggest area where these firms *generally* lack know-how is how to do a website redesign with SEO in mind. If done wrong, here's what happens:
- You could lose your rank for keywords you are already ranking for. Whether you've put much effort into SEO already or not, most websites generate a good portion of their traffic from their organic search listings. Don't screw it up.
- You could be rewriting content for no strategic reason. If you have an existing website, chances are that you're *almost* ranking for at least a handful of relevant keywords. When you're rewriting content, you should find out what those keywords are and then use them to guide your content creation.
- You could lose the value of your inbound links. Existing links from other sites usually point to different pages on your site. They drive direct traffic and support your SEO. Make sure you map and redirect old pages to new ones.
- You could do a lot of things that need to be redone again. SEO affects how you organize the pages on your site, your navigation, the words you use to name your pages and many more things that are more expensive and time consuming to change after you build your site.
So, if you're a marketing manager or a business owner relaunching your website, it's important for you to understand this process. Since this process requires thorough keyword research and since keyword research requires knowledge of the business, this should be a very collaborative process. The company you hire should have these skills and collaborate with you, or you should find someone that will (Have you seen our website redesign kit?). As I mentioned in my last post, there are parts of your internet marketing strategy where you need to be intimately involved . This is one of them.
Free Webinar: Website Redesign for 2010
|
Learn how to redesign your website with an internet marketing strategy in mind with Mike Volpe, HubSpot's VP of Marketing.
Download the Webinar Now and learn how to turn your website into an internet marketing machine. |
Inbound Marketing Blog Feed
trish bertuzzi 9:33 AM on May 07, 2008
Getting ready to take our site to the next level and make it even more content rich. Think you just saved us from making some dumb mistakes. Thank you!
Jeff Wilson 12:13 PM on May 07, 2008
This is a great article. We hear horror stories every day at our company from clients who have hired an SEO shop where the programmers have no business experience. You can really get burned this way. If they have no business knowledge then you need to find someone who does and gets what you're trying to accomplish.
brandtorrent.com 12:17 PM on May 07, 2008
While SEO is a huge component of site design it can't be valued at the expense of other things the site needs to do. All too often I see sites that try to cram in keywords at the expense of usability and a professional aesthetic and while it may appease search robots it's a turn off to humans with wallets. The other really important driving force for a lot of site designs should be a sales funnel, especially with B2B sites or site selling services. Thinking about the different personas coming to the site or pain points a site visitor may have and designing your site to address those is just as important to consider as SEO. If you neglect this you may bring the people to your site but not get as many conversions once they arrive.
Anonymous 12:36 PM on May 07, 2008
@brandtorrent
I am in the process of writing a broader post about business goals and how they affect web development and internet marketing activities.
If you'd like to contribute, please email me at firstinitiallastname at hubspot dot com.
PK 12:39 PM on May 07, 2008
Brandtorrent, I would agree with you that SEO isn't everything -- but, it should be the first thing.
You state, "All too often I see sites that try to cram in keywords at the expense of usability and professional aesthetic..." I would argue that if you come across a site that is doing this, it most likely won't rank well for the primary keyword. If someone is keyword stuffing, search engines tend to devalue the overall effectiveness of that page. So, I wouldn't necessarily categorize this as best-practice SEO. When done properly SEO actually simplifies a page and in my experience this increases usability and aesthetics and I know this because I see increasing conversion rates.
SEO is incredibly necessary as a foundation for a site so that "the other things" can be put to use.
peter caputa 2:17 PM on May 07, 2008
Great points, PK. Agree completely. SEO provides the underpinning and has the most effect on the way a site is built. However, if the company wants to invest time & $ into PPC, social media, blogging, there are obviously some important things to consider. So, their overall marketing strategy should be taken into account when designing and building a site.
I think that's what @brandtorrent was mostly saying and that's a valid point too.
GreatDomainRace.com 11:21 AM on May 08, 2008
Good Information. I don't know how many times a day I come across a nice looking website with nothing but the company name in the title tag. Good content and SEO should be the basis of a redesign, not a getting a new "flashy site".
Hoteles en Bariloche 8:59 AM on May 09, 2008
Getting ready to take our site to the next level and make it even more content rich. Think you just saved us from making some dumb mistakes. Good Work!
peter caputa 12:41 PM on May 09, 2008
Hope you guys "who were about to make some mistakes" are subscribed to the blog. I'm planning on writing a post that painstakingly details the steps involved in this process.
peter caputa 2:27 PM on May 11, 2008
@Tony Edward. There's only one SEO strategy. It's just that most people don't know it. We don't do a great job at marketing HubSpot's training program, but each client goes through a guided self paced learning process to learn internet marketing.
Dan Tyre 10:07 PM on May 11, 2008
I'm a big believer in a one page overview of the business goals of the website circulated amoungst the senior level management team and agreed upon by everyone.
Do you want
brand awareness
increased traffic
more qualified traffic
more sales leads
and then evaluate what ISN'T working on your website. A good way to get the facts is to log statistics for six -eight weeks and look at the numbers (especially against your competitors) or other sites you benchmark against.
jean 3:14 PM on May 12, 2008
Ssshhhh. I wish you wouldn't keep telling all of these secrets to my competition! Seriously, what happens when everyone starts doing it right? Then what?
peter caputa 4:40 PM on May 12, 2008
@Jean. As long as you keep posting those photos from the "go topless" events on your HubSpot powered well-SEOd blog, you'll beat the competition. :-)
Let me know if I can help with anything eg link building, etc: first initial last name at hubspot dot com.