A website redesign can be an excellent way to refresh aesthetics, modernize features, improve navigation, and more. However, this hot new look can quickly become discouraging and frustrating if it results in a drop in website traffic. After all, why would improving the site cause the traffic to decline? Well, it’s not necessarily a sign that the redesign is bad or that there is something completely broken.
Even slight technical changes to a site can affect the way a search engine indexes a site, and this is especially the case when a redesign is done incorrectly. Fortunately, this is not an uncommon issue that results from a few technical or structural changes from the redesign, and it can be fixed.
Continue below, where we will cover the common ways a website redesign can cause a decline in traffic, as well as how to diagnose and fix these issues. This way, you can have them remedied before they affect your long-term SEO and website traffic performance.
Evaluating Performance with a Website Traffic Checker
The first step is to determine how much the traffic is down and on what pages. This can easily be done using a website traffic checker. These are online tools that can analyze the traffic to the site, even narrowed down by devices, top pages, and traffic share. This step will help to evaluate whether traffic is down to a certain page or multiple pages, and how much of a decline.
There are several excellent website traffic checkers online, but a couple of good mentions are SEMrush and Ahrefs. These tools can also often key you in on a potential reason for the traffic being down.
Determining the Cause After You Check Website Traffic
After you check website traffic and determine where issues are occurring, it’s time to diagnose and fix the issue. Let’s take a look at some of the common reasons for decreased traffic and their fixes.
Changes to URL Structure
The course of a website redesign often includes URL changes and restructuring. This can be for better organization, easier navigation, and removal of irrelevant or confusing pages. However, this can also lead to broken links and pages that can throw off users.
For instance, the previous URL for a service page could have been …/services, but now becomes …/our-services. While this can be clearer for the layout and navigation, it means any link to …/services will now lead to a 404 error for the user. This can be a common error if the menu was updated, but the linked URLs were not updated as well.
The Fix: Fortunately, URL issues are simple, common, and a very easy fix. The fix for cases of URL changes is either maintaining the original URL name or format, or creating a redirect. A redirect simply means that when a user clicks the previous link, they will be redirected from the old URL to the new one. Website traffic checkers can help identify pages that have these errors.
Missing or Poor Redirects
This goes somewhat hand in hand with the above issue, but let’s take a bit of a deeper look.
Properly created redirects are a vital part of maintaining SEO during and after a redesign. While this includes internal links like mentioned above, it also accounts for external backlinks. This means other websites that link to your website. If the URL they are linking to has changed, it means the backlink is no longer connecting or indexing. Keep in mind that 404 pages are often seen by search engines as content removal, so be sure to remedy URL issues quickly.
The Fix: In the case of backlinks, the solution is often the same as above: create a redirect from the previous URL. You can also reach out to the website with the backlink to have them update it, but the first option is often easier.
Changes to SEO Elements
The next issue we are looking into often occurs as a collateral issue of redesign. During a redesign, the typical focus is on the visual presentation of content and the site’s infrastructure. However, in the process of improving and updating, certain critical SEO elements may be accidentally changed, removed, or not updated. This includes elements like:
- Meta Title and Meta Description: These snippets give information to search engines that affect how it shows up and can significantly affect click-through rates.
- Header Tags: Header tags are HTML elements that differentiate and define the importance of different headings within content. Altering, duplicating, or removing these can create confusion for search engines attempting to index the page.
- Image Alt Text: Descriptive HTML text that helps to define what images are in text format. This is vital for keyword relevance and accessibility purposes. However, this can accidentally be changed or removed during a redesign, which can affect ranking and relevance.
The Fix: Firstly, be sure to document all relevant SEO elements before beginning any redesign process. Then, audit each page after it is finished and before launch to ensure all SEO elements, content, and image data ARE in correct operating order. There are tools, such as SEMrush, that can be used to help identify missing or altered elements.
Content Removal or Rewrites
Another common part of website redesign is for content to be rewritten, trimmed, or refreshed. Some may even be removed if it is no longer relevant or so out of date that it makes more sense to write a new piece. This can be incredibly beneficial for improving aesthetics and offering more appeal to the user. However, it can have the backlash of tanking organic traffic if not handled correctly.
Search engines typically rank content based on relevance, depth, keywords, and the point here: historical performance. Removing or significantly changing high-performing pages or content can lose a lot of the visibility it once had. This is why it’s important to evaluate and maintain high-performers before any website redesign.
The Fix: Ideally, before redesign, audit content and retain the core themes, headers, and keyword structure of the high-performing content. Tools like Google Analytics and Search Console can be used to audit content and determine which pieces drive significant traffic. If the change has already been made, you can try restoring the content to the original place or fixing the links that caused it to no longer exist. However, it may not bounce back immediately.
Graphem Solutions: Your Partner in Website Redesign
If you don’t have the internal team to complete a website redesign, we can help. Our professional team of designers are experts in creating custom websites and redesigning to fit your business’s needs. Moreover, we will ensure to audit each page carefully and work closely with you to preserve your current traffic, and ideally improve it.
Maybe you need a consultation for fixing your website after a redesign? We can help there, too.
To see our work, you can check out our portfolio from our other satisfied clients.
Want to learn more about our services? You can reach out through our online form or call us at 1-800-590-0175. We look forward to working with you to create a website that matches your vision.
