Redesigning a website is a common strategy businesses use to stay relevant. The most common reasons are rebranding to align with a new visual identity, improving user experience, or restructuring the website.
Whatever the reason, a revamp often comes with risks, especially when it comes to your hard-earned SEO performance.
Also Read: Local SEO Tips: How to Reach Your Nearby Customers
The SEO Risks Behind a Website Revamp
While a fresh design can be exciting, it fundamentally changes your website’s structure. Without a proper SEO plan, these changes can confuse search engines and lead to significant setbacks.
Here are the most common risks to be aware of.
1. Traffic Drops
ne of the most common risks after a revamp is a drop in traffic. This usually happens when high-traffic pages are removed, URLs are changed, or pages become inaccessible without proper redirects.
2. Keyword Ranking Loss
High-performing keywords may lose visibility in the SERPs if pages are removed, content is changed, or headings and URLs are modified during the redesign.
3. Crawling and Indexing Issues
Websites that rely heavily on JavaScript or contain missing tags, broken internal links, or poor technical setup may face crawling and indexing problems, preventing search engines from properly ranking the site.
Key SEO Elements to Safeguard During a Revamp
To avoid the risks mentioned above, you need to protect the core elements that search engines rely on to understand and rank your site.
These on-page and technical SEO components are often overlooked during a redesign but are crucial for maintaining your rankings.
1. URL/Slug Changes
Always set up 301 redirects for any changed or removed URLs to avoid dead ends and traffic loss.
2. Meta Tags (Title & Description)
Meta tags often get lost or overwritten during a redesign. Since they are essential for click-through rate and visibility, ensure they are properly migrated.
3. Content Structure & Internal Links
Headings (H1, H2, H3) and internal links define the content hierarchy for both users and search engines. These elements are often altered or removed during a revamp, which is why it’s important to check and maintain them.
4. Technical Elements (Canonical & Structured Data)
Canonical tags prevent duplicate content issues, while structured data helps your site appear with rich results in SERPs. Ensure these elements are carried over correctly.
How to Protect SEO During a Website Revamp
Knowing what to protect is half the battle; the other half is implementing a structured process to ensure nothing falls through the cracks.
A proactive approach is the best way to safeguard your SEO. Here is a step-by-step plan to follow.
1. Involve the SEO Team from day one of the Revamp
SEO should not be done after your website is done revamping. But the SEO team needs to be involved from the first time of the revamping plan so that they can ensure the smooth process since day one.
2. Run a Full SEO Audit Before Redesign
Start with a comprehensive SEO audit, identify top-performing pages, high-ranking keywords, backlink-heavy pages, and most importantly, pages with high conversions. After identifying, map a 301 redirect slug.
3. Test Everything Before the Website Goes Live
A staging website is needed so that the SEO team can ensure all important pages and SEO elements are complete. Use supporting tools like Screaming Frog. From that, you could fix all the issues or add some missing points so we could minimize the traffic loss after the website goes live.
4. Regular Monitoring After Live
Once the site is live, you still will see the issues; therefore a regular checking after the website going live is a crucial part. Monitor how your website performs in SERPs. Re-crawl and Re-submit the sitemap, fix any 404s pages and internal link gaps, as well as the technical issues found after the website goes live.
Also Read: Building Effective Call-to-Actions (CTAs) for Your SEO Articles
Final Thoughts
Revamping your website is an opportunity for your business to grow, but without a clear SEO strategy, it can quickly become a setback rather than an upgrade. Treat SEO as a core part of the process, not just a final checklist after the website goes live.
Planning a website revamp? Don’t leave your SEO to chance. Talk to our SEO experts, explore our service today and find out how we can help your website grow.