Web Design And Marketing

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.

1. 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.

2. Not using data from the old site

At minimum, before redesigning a new site you should understand your current websites:

• Basic traffic patterns, this includes visits, unique visits, pageviews (this should be used as your benchmark for the new site)
• Top search engine keyword referrals and the pages that correspond to those referrals
• Top 10 web pages with the highest conversion rate. Analyze these to understand what is working or not working for each page.
• Top visitor paths for conversion. Keep these in mind when you are evaluating redesigned website’s navigation.
• Understand how many of your web pages are indexed in each major search engine, and also how many external links each search engine has listed for your web site.

If this doesn’t make sense, don’t worry about it. Just be sure to ask for it.

3. Not analyzing each page for “calls to action”
   

Many times, marketers get caught up in meeting a deadline, or getting the new creative done, and don’t take the time to analyze each and every new page for it’s call to action. A web site redesign is a chance to improve your conversion rates across the board. Each page should have an action goal for the visitor to take.

For example adding a product to the shopping cart, email signups, whitepaper download, etc. A great article on this is Strategic Marketing: Increase Your Web Site Conversion Rates With An Action Map

4. Not asking web designer to make the code SEO friendly

Ask your web designer to explain what they will be doing to make the redesigned website code search engine friendly. Be sure to ask the designer to list what they will be doing. And then take an hour or so and research each item on the Internet to ensure that the SEO methods are current and credible. Many web designers use outdated methods, it is a full time job to keep up with SEO trends, and you can’t expect a good web designer to be good at creative and SEO.

For example, If they say they will optimize the keyword meta tags, then this is a potential hazard sign. (The keyword meta tag has lost its importance, and if keywords are in the tag that don’t appear on your page, then this may create even more trouble.

Here is a sample of things that you do want to hear:
Source ordering the website template

• Unique titles on each and every page
• Unique meta tags on each and every page
• Efficient use of header tags
• Content optimized based on keyword research
• Static pages

If you feel that your designer may be going down the wrong path, hire an SEO expert to work with the designer, dont push it off until after the redesign is done. It is worth a delay in a web sites rollout date, to make sure that an SEO expert is reviewing website templates and content.

5. Not creating a custom 404 page

Make sure that your designer creates a custom 404 page. Usually this page just consists of an error message with a sitemap of the new site.

This is important because if someone goes to a page from the old website, you want to make sure that they can find the new page that is appropriate. You maybe saying, this won’t be an issue if I use 301 redirects. In theory, you are correct. However, depending on how big your site is, there maybe pages that you don’t know about, or pages that were deleted ages ago that the designer won’t know about. A custom 404 page is a must have and is easy to implement.

Filed by admin at 11:35 pm under website design