Web Design And Marketing

March 11, 2007

5 Common Web Site Redesign Mistakes

I am a firm believer that as a business owner or manager you need to know a little bit of information when it comes to the ins and outs of your Website. Don’t get caught up in the technical details (who has time for that?), but do arm yourself with enough information to ensure that things are done properly. This is especially critical when you have decided to redesign your Website. The last thing you want is for web sales or leads to drop.

This is not an exhaustive list by any means, but it is a list of 5 common mistakes that you should familiarize yourself with.

Not utilizing 301 Redirects

At a basic level, a 301 redirect is a snippet of code that tells search engines and other “bots” that a page has permanently moved. Why should you care? A 301 redirect is the best way to maintain your “link equity”. (Basically link equity is the number of links pointing to your site. Link equity is a whole other topic. Just know that it is very important, and that you want to protect it.

On a Linux / Unix server, a 301 redirect looks like this:
Redirect 301 /oldpage.htm http://www.domain/com/newpage.html

Make sure that any contract or specs that you sign for a redesign, include a mapping of old pages to new pages, and a 301 redirect is implemented for each page.

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