Having a solid website migration strategy is crucial when moving to a new website design. SEO and content need a seat at your new website design’s table. In the era of content publishing rising, and content consumption dropping, it’s important to think about SEO and web design. Basically there’s more content than ever out there, and fewer people reading it. Therefore the quality of your content and it’s search engine optimization needs to be paramount to your brands success.
Don’t think about being page one
In a previous article I wrote about how being page one on Google isn’t what you should focus on. This is important because your front door of your business online isn’t always a websites homepage. Content marketing gets attention from readers looking for answers to problems they need answers to. Most business want or need a website, product or brand refreshes, or simply more customers. So they start to Google how to do that and achieve that goal. Are you blogging about how they can? Most of these questions are high level and the actual start to answer them isn’t the question they are asking. That’s where your content marketing comes in. It can serve to educate and help guide your potential customer down the path they need to be on to success.
Eyes on the brand, easy to use
This gets thrown around a lot, but it’s absolutely true. Think about major brands you know about. They are immediately recognizable an their products are easily accessed and customers widely use them. Using your website after they find it is important. We’ve blogged about what’s above the fold here on Element 502 before. Don’t cram everything in your main navigation, but strategize about what is the breadcrumb that will get them to click to get them to the next step they need to be on.
After launching your redesigned website
Now it’s time to look at how your new website is performing in the search engine. Sprinkling in keywords isn’t the answer. You need context and insight to make strategic content changes. If you are not careful you could end up send your site down the wrong path of readers. In other words you’ll change your audience to one that doesn’t help revenue growth. You’ll want to see where your users drop off and how they are finding you. No matter what you do, don’t hit the alarm without all the data about what’s really happening.
There is a razors edge of accuracy between SEO and UX in a website migration strategy. Being robotic sounding in your websites copy can turn users away because of too much focus on ranking for SEO. Too little and the search engine cannot tell what the page is about. These are killers for you website to watch for before and after your new websites launch.
