How to Fix Website Traffic Drops after Website Redesign

If your website is outdated or not going with the current design trend, then you need to consider of redesigning it with all the latest technology & features available to attract your customers more. In this process, some common mistakes we make while redesigning & relaunching new website which can affect the site ranking & drastic fall in web traffic. Here we will discuss about How to Fix Website Traffic Drops after Website Redesign & also How to Avoid Website Traffic Drops & Mistakes while Website Redesign. 

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Website Traffic Drop Reasons after a Redesign

Firstly it’s important to know that minor fall in web traffic or fluctuation in number of web visits is quite a normal thing after a website revamp. Even if the drop percentage is 10%, still you can consider it as a normal case. Google index ranking may drop temporarily after you relaunch your site. You need to give some time to Google for crawling & indexing all your new website pages to present your new design & version to the users. This can cause a temporary drop of organic traffic.

This time period can be few days with a minor drop of traffic in your site. But if this situation stays for long & also your organic traffic dropped abruptly, then it’s a serious concern. In this case there must be something wrong with your website redesign & you need to take this issue seriously.

There are some major causes mentioned below which can raise the above situation.

1) Redirect Issues

One of the most common mistakes happen while redesigning your website is to set Redirects properly. You may overlook it but it’s always one of the main reasons for a major traffic drop in your site. Therefore the foremost important thing is to set the redirects properly while website redesigning.

If you recreate the same old pages in your new website & keep the URLs exactly same as previous, then you may not face this issue. But if it’s not like than then you must give special attention to set proper redirects for your pages. Otherwise while crawling & indexing search engines cannot find the new version of your pages, thus cannot route traffic to your pages.

Therefore improper redirects or not even setting up redirects can cause the major traffic drop.

Still if you are not sure about the reason, you can login to Google Webmaster Tool & you can find there the crawl errors & redirect issues in the ‘Not Found’ Tab. If there are pages in your website without redirect, you can identify those pages there. Also you can have other analytics of your site there.

You can resolve this redirect issue by implementing 301 redirect (Permanent) for your old pages. Do not use 302 redirects (Temporary), this can be also a reason for your traffic & rank drop. You can see the improvement in your traffic drop within a couple of weeks.

2) Site Structure

For crawling & indexing a website & its pages by search engine is the most important thing for the visibility factor. Your site structure & sitemap is responsible to provide a better understanding of your site with proper navigation. Therefore while redesigning your site if the sitemap changes drastically, then it can be a serious issue for your traffic drop. In that case you need to create a new sitemap for your website.

The sitemap of any site has the whole structure & flow within. It basically provides the page listing of you whole site. So after creating the new sitemap, submit it into the search console for indexing your new pages.

Also you need to carefully check the internal links & page navigation in your site & fix it if there is any issue. This will help to fix traffic Drop.

3) Site Copy

While redesigning your website you need to keep in mind to arrange your pages according to the keywords you were ranked for. Your keywords are the pivotal element for your higher ranking & web traffic. So hire a SEO expert to arrange your new pages & keywords & optimize your site, so that you can avoid the traffic drop.

After redesigning your website you must keep a close eye in your site analytics. If your observe traffic drop then inspect the above points. If it occurred due to above reasons then you need to immediately resolve these issues.

After fixing the problems, search engines will take couple of weeks to crawl & index your new pages. So have patience for that time being and regularly observe your site analytics. Your website traffic rate will improve gradually.

How to Avoid Traffic Drops & Common Mistakes while Website Redesign Process

Prevention is always better than the cure. Therefore its better if the traffic drop issue doesn’t even arise. By following some steps you can easily avoid your website traffic drop while you redesign your website & relaunch it.

Hire an SEO Expert

Hire an SEO expert who will co ordinate every time with your designing team. Your SEO consultant can identify & figure out if everything is going right with the redesign process. Even he can suggest some updates or changes which will help to improve your traffic after you relaunch. With a professional & experienced SEO & redesign team you can avoid the organic traffic drop of your site when you relaunch it.

Crawl Your Whole Website & Create a New Sitemap

Crawl your whole site minutely & keep record of all internal links, navigation & most importantly the Keywords for which your site is getting rank & organic traffic. Arrange your new pages according to that & optimize your new site. Most importantly create your new sitemap & submit it to the search console to provide a better access of your new site.

Set Up & Implement 301 Redirects

Set Up & Implement 301 Redirects for all of your old website pages. Redirects are the most crucial reason for major traffic drop & website rank drop. With a proper set up of 301 redirects for your website in the first place while website redesigning; you can avoid the traffic drop.

Finally before launching your new redesigned site check that your analytical tracking code is in place into the new site. Keep reviewing your site analytics regularly.

Now you can have a stress free & error free website relaunch!

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