Clients and others often ask me how they can redesign their site or migrate to a new CMS and not end up committing seppuku in the local search results.
I tell them that although there are probably a hundred checklist items they might concern themselves with, only a few really matter. Do these steps wrong or forget to do them and you will bring great dishonor to your local rankings.
If you’re considering a rebuild, make sure that at the very least you’ve done everything on this 7-point checklist:
1. Do your 301 redirects.
Do them on all pages that (a) you’ll be renaming or relocating (to a different subdirectory, for example) and that (b) have good external links pointing to them.
2. Keep your title tags the same.
Unless they’re lousy and you want to change them anyway. Take note of your title tags at least on your most-important / highest-traffic pages, or use Screaming Frog to grab and export all of them.
3. Keep your content the same.
If you have 5 paragraphs on the old version of a page, make sure the new version has the same 5 paragraphs. Short of doing that, at least keep the content as similar as possible (unless it just sucks).
4. Make sure your Google Analytics tracking code doesn’t get butchered.
Just log into Analytics after the upgrade and get worried only if you see a flat line.
Check back again a few days later to make sure data’s still coming in OK.
5. Remove all noindex tags from your staging site.
(At least from the pages you want Google to index.)
While you’re at it, make sure your robots.txt doesn’t disallow your entire site.
Thanks to Darren for the reminder.
6. Make sure your local listings still point to the landing page URL you want them to.
If necessary, update those listings to point to the correct URL on your site.
7. Don’t assume the user-experience is better.
You may like the new look. Your turtleneck-clad designer may like the new look. But all of that amounts to nothing in the end if your pages load too slowly or confuse customers.
As I’ve said, the “back” button is the worst enemy of local SEO. Google seems to pay attention to how visitors behave once they’re on the site. Also, all the rankings in the world don’t matter if your site makes people cuss.
Use a tool like CrazyEgg to study where visitors click and scroll – how they use the site – and use that intel to make things easier to find and to use. Also consider getting some five-second tests, or asking your spouse or a trusty cowpoke for an unvarnished opinion.
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Get those basics right and worry about smaller stuff later. If you’ve got a big site or there’s any ecommerce going on, you’ll probably have more work to do during or after the upgrade.
Any redesign / migration horror stories?
Any tips on how to make the transition easy on your local rankings?
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