How to Renew a Website Without Losing Search Traffic

You renew your website, and it looks wonderfully fresh. A few months later, traffic has dropped and inquiries have fallen. Many people have heard a story like this. A renewal done well can be a tailwind for the business; a renewal done badly can throw away the search traffic that took years to build. In our website production work we also handle rebuilding existing sites and migrating CMSs. This page sets out the process that is worth knowing in advance if you are considering a renewal.

What is most frightening about a renewal

People renew a website for many reasons: the design looks old, the site is hard to read on a smartphone, updating has become laborious, or the CMS is outdated and security is a concern. All are legitimate motives.

Renewals nevertheless carry risks that are easy to overlook. The largest is a drop in traffic from search engines. When a site is rebuilt, page URLs may change, pages that had been valued may disappear, and the wording may change substantially. As a result the position of pages in search results can shift.

The next risk is that updating stops. A new system has been introduced, but the person in charge cannot use it well and updates dry up. Within half a year the rebuilt site is in the same state as the old one.

Another is realizing just before launch that pages or functions which should have been kept are missing: a contact form that sends to the wrong address, or a download page that existed on the old site and is now gone.

Organizing these risks beforehand makes them much smaller. The key to a successful renewal is deciding what not to change before deciding what to renew.

First, confirm goals and the present state with numbers

The first step is to make the goal of the renewal clear: more inquiries, more job applications, more store visits. The goal changes the structure the site needs and the pages that must be kept.

Once the goal is set, confirm how the current site is doing. With Google Search Console, which Google provides free of charge, and an analytics tool, you can see how many visitors reach each page from search and which words find it. Pages that attract many visitors from search are, in effect, assets of the site. In a renewal, set a policy of keeping the content and the URLs of those pages as far as possible.

Conversely, pages that are hardly read, or whose information has become outdated, are candidates for tidying up during the renewal. Rather than keeping everything, sort pages into those to keep, those to merge and those to let go, on the basis of numbers.

Protect the domain and the URLs

When it comes to carrying over search evaluation, the handling of the domain and URLs is especially important.

Even when you keep the same domain, if a page URL changes you need a permanent redirect (a 301 redirect) from the old URL to the new one. Without it, people arriving from search results at the old URL land on an error page, and search engines cannot tell that the page has moved.

If you must change the domain, in addition to redirecting from the old domain to the new one, you also carry out the "change of address" procedure in Search Console. Handing evaluation over to a new domain can take time, so whether to change it needs careful thought.

Unless there is a particular reason, we recommend a basic policy of keeping the domain, and keeping the URLs as far as possible too.

Which CMS, and how to migrate

A renewal is also a chance to review your CMS. We support WordPress and OctoberCMS, which has few specialist providers in Japan. We can also help if you want to move an existing static HTML site to a CMS or migrate from an old CMS to a new one.

It helps to sort out the following when choosing a CMS.

• Who updates the site: a non-specialist doing it routinely, or a production company only when needed
• How often it is updated: frequent news posts, or a few updates a year
• What kind of information it will hold: only a contact form, or member or booking data as well

On this basis, choose a CMS that fits the required functions and security level. When migrating from an old CMS, move existing articles and images to the new system and, at this point, also confirm how article URLs will change.

How much text and imagery to carry over

At renewal time it is tempting to think that the text and images on the existing site can simply be moved to the new one. Moving everything mechanically is not always best.

Articles that attract many visitors from search, and pages that lead to inquiries, should be handled carefully. Limit yourself to polishing the expression, and avoid changing the gist or headings much, since this makes it easier to keep search evaluation. Pages whose information is out of date or which duplicate one another, on the other hand, are candidates for merging or deletion. Reducing the number of pages makes the whole site easier to read and lightens the update burden.

Images deserve the same review. Those that are too large and slow the display, or whose quality is too low for present screens, should be reconsidered. Page speed affects both how usable the site is and how it is evaluated in search.

A renewal is also a chance to supply information that was missing: the content of your services, your approach to pricing, your company's thinking, how customers typically use the service. Adding pages for what customers wanted to know but could not find raises the chance of inquiries.

In-house, or a production company?

Whether to carry out a renewal in-house or to commission a production company is a difficult judgment.

In-house work is easier on cost and flexible to your circumstances. When staff do it alongside normal duties, however, the work tends to slip and launch takes longer than expected. Specialist matters such as URL redirects and security preparation are also easy to overlook.

Commissioning a production company lets you hand over those specialist parts and manage the whole project in one place. On the other hand, you must still convey your goals and thinking to the production company properly. If that does not come across, the finished site may differ from what you imagined.

A combination is possible. You might prepare the structure and the outline of the text yourself and commission the technical parts of the build and migration, or commission the work up to launch and handle everyday updates yourself. We propose a division of roles that is not a strain, after learning about your organization and budget.

Testing before launch

A rebuilt site should not go live in production at once. Test it thoroughly in a test environment first. Points to check include the following.

• Whether redirects from old URLs to new ones behave as intended
• Whether the contact form sends and whether the automatic reply mail arrives
• Whether the display works on screens of various sizes, smartphones included
• Whether the sitemap is up to date

It is also important to set the test environment so that it does not get registered by search engines, for example by restricting access or by keeping it out of search results. Conversely, check at launch that such settings have not been left in place. Incidents where a setting that blocks search engine crawling remained after launch are not rare.

Right after launch, confirm in Search Console that no errors appear and watch how traffic moves. A renewal does not end with going live; it is also the work of confirming results over the months that follow.

What to check in the first months after launch

Even after launch you should not relax for a while. It takes time for search engines to read the new site and update their evaluation. During that time, rankings and traffic may fluctuate temporarily, which is not unusual.

The first thing to check is whether Search Console shows errors or warnings: whether pages are read correctly, whether the sitemap is recognized and whether redirects have problems. It is worth checking these immediately after launch and regularly afterward.

Next, watch traffic. Compare the number of visitors from search and the number of inquiries with those before launch. If some page has fallen sharply, investigate how its URL and content changed in the renewal and make the necessary corrections.

Also keep checking that the contact form works. It may work right after launch and stop sending later because of some change. A habit of regular test submissions prevents lost opportunities.

Small points that are easy to miss

Finally, here are small points that tend to be overlooked in renewals.

If the tag for analytics is not carried over to the new site, you can no longer see how the site is used and cannot confirm the effect. If the certificate that encrypts communication is not set up properly, browsers display warnings and visitors become uneasy. Check also that downloadable materials from the old site, bookmarks to particular pages and links from other sites have not broken on the new site.

Check, too, that the mail addresses used with the old site and the destination of form submissions have not changed. They may seem trivial, but they can cost you contact with customers.

Each is a small item, yet together they decide whether a renewal succeeds. We list the items to be checked before launch and proceed so that nothing is left out.

How we think about cost

The cost of a renewal varies greatly with the scale and content of the site. The main factors are the number of pages, how elaborate the design is, the amount of migration work for the CMS and existing articles, functions such as forms, and whether maintenance continues after launch.

When you ask for a quotation, we recommend confirming not only the total amount but also what it includes. For example, whether it covers redirect settings from old URLs, checks before launch and guidance on how to update afterward affects your peace of mind after launch. We listen to your budget in the discovery meeting and propose a structure that is not a strain.

The overall flow we propose

The process we propose is as follows.

Confirming the present state and goals

We organize the goal, the state of the current site and the pages to keep.

Structure and design proposal

We propose the structure and design of the new site, on the premise of keeping URL changes to a minimum.

Production and migration

We build the CMS, implement content and migrate existing data.

Verification and launch

We confirm redirects and forms in a test environment before launch.

Follow-up after launch

You can also consult us about operations after launch.

Before you rebuild, talk to us about where you are now

Starting a renewal after organizing the current situation usually saves both cost and time compared with plunging in. If you feel you want to rebuild your site, or you simply feel uneasy about your present one, please consult us.

For renewal inquiries and quotations, please use the contact form. An overview of our production work is on our page about website production in Hyogo and Okayama.