SEO & the Website Redesign Process

Traps, Tricks, Techniques & Tools

Laurence O’TooleDirector – AnalyticsSEO.comLaurence@analyticsseo.com

+ 44 208 977 4465www.analyticsseo.com

@analyticsseo www.websiteredevelopment.com

Who are we?A UK software business on a mission to:

“Have the time of our lives building software that changes our customers' lives”

• Analytics SEO is a suite of online SEO tools for SEO agencies and companies with multiple websites

• We also redesign a few websites every now and then!

Website Redesign PitfallsProblems stem from:• Redesigning on a whim• No concerted plan or running before walking• Fallen out with designers/developers• Not analytical enough – changing pages that convert well• No research or survey data• No benchmarks or targets• Lack of understanding and knowledge of SEO• Unrealistic budget, resources or timescales• Inadequate security

Website Redesign PitfallsCommon Traps:• Change of domain or TLD – no redirection• Change in URLs – no redirects or global redirects• Indexed pages in search engines are not found (404 error)• Loss of site traffic• Loss of conversions on previously good converting pages• Loss of position in the SERPs• Loss of site in the SERPs• Loss of job?

Example Google Malware Page

Typical Website Redesign ProcessProject Definition

Site Structure

Visual Design

Site Development

Test & Refine

Launch

SEO & Website Redesign ProcessProject Scope

Site Architecture

Visual Design

Site Development

Test & Refine

Launch

Benchmarking

Ongoing Updates

Celebration

+ Website Analytics, SEO Analytics

+ Webmaster Tools

+ Website Analytics, SEO Analytics+ User Tests & Survey Results

+ User Tests & Survey Results

+ Continuous Website & SEO monitoring

+ KPIs, Targets, Benchmarks

Project Scope

Benchmarking

Ongoing Updates

Celebration

Test & Refine

Launch

Site Development

Test & Refine

Launch

Visual Design

Site Development

Test & Refine

Launch

Site Architecture

Visual Design

Site Development

Test & Refine

Launch

Project Scope

Benchmarking

Ongoing Updates

Project Scope

Benchmarking

Celebration

Ongoing Updates

Project Scope

Benchmarking

Project Scope• Why do you need a redesign?• Establish Commercial Goals• Establish Project Goals• Analysis, Research & Reality Check• Agree Website & SEO KPIs/Targets• Budget• Team & Timescales Useful questionnaires

www.web-redesign.com

Project Scope: Analytics & Research• Website statistics

– Site Visits, Popular Content, Conversion Analysis– Screen size, browsers, Traffic sources

• Customer & User survey– Likes and dislikes

• Log files– 404s, other errors

Project Scope: SEO Research• Website Analytics

– Add analytics & Webmaster Tools to old site (if not already added)• SEO Analysis

– Basic Site Audit & On-Site Analysis – highlights obvious site issues– Competitive analysis

• PPC Campaign analysis– Which keywords are converting?– Consider using them in your redesign

• Strategic Planning Gap– How large is the gap between my site and my competitors?– Do I have the resources and desire to commit?

Basic SEO Site Audit

Competitive SEO Audit

Project Scope: Project GoalsSet Project Targets & Benchmarks:• Create a set of benchmarks that you can compare at

Campaign Start & Campaign End– Keyword ranking comparison– Competitive benchmarking – League Tables

• Website Analytics KPIs:– Revenue, Sales conversions, Visits, Goals,– No. Keywords & %Pages bringing organic traffic– Unique Visitors, Page Views, Bounce Rate, Time on

site, Brand engagement

Benchmark Analytics Data

Example: Organic Breadth & Depth

Project Scope: Project Planning• Excel• Basecamp• Fogbugz

Site Architecture• SEO Friendly – information architecture, navigation

URLs, Meta Tags, coding (separation of HTML and CSS) – Not using JS links

• W3C compliant• Old sitemap and hierarchy vs New Sitemap &

hierarchy - Treejack (“Analytics for a website you haven’t built yet”)

• Plan 301 redirects• Plan to make it fast…

Site Architecture

Visual Design• Sketches – sharing initial thoughts and ideas• Wireframes – sharing with the client• Test initial design

– Internal team– Client– User groups

• Which Content Management System ?• Proprietary?• Free/Open Source

– Drupal– Joomla– Wordpress

• Numerous SEO Plug-ins• XML Sitemap generator

Site Development

Content• Golden opportunity - How can you improve your site?• What did your customers/users tell you?

– “If you were running our business how would you improve our website?”

• Video - DIY Video Suite - Animoto• Avatars - Site Pal• Update Plan - build in feedback - Kampyle• Make it easy for people to link to your content, e.g.

tweetmeme• Community support – Get Satisfaction 2.0• Organising Content – Optimal Sort

TestingType of testing:• Functional & Performance• X-Browser testing• UsabilityOptions:• Friends and family• Focus groups – internal and external• Usability testing labs & eye tracking toolsOnline Tools:

– Five Second Test – initial test of designs – clicks and keywords– Litmus – X-browser testing for websites and email– Crazy Egg – visualise user behaviour – heatmaps and clicks– Userfly – watch videos of your users– Feedback Army – Ask users questions and get them to perform specific tasks– Mechanical Turk – Human Intelligence Task– Jmeter - Scalability & performance - record interactions, playback multiple threads– Yslow, Google Web Toolkit – Browser plug-ins and developer toolkits

Usability TestingHow much testing should I do?• Jacob Nielsen one of the best-known usability gurus, says:• “The best results come from testing no more than 5 users and running as many

small tests as you can afford.”

http://www.useit.com

Launch• SEO• PPC• Blogging• Social Media• Email• PR• Video

Sorry, there’s just not enough time to cover all the tools you could use to

support your re-launch.

Benchmarking• Compare initial results with campaign start• Post launch questionnaires and compare results with

campaign start– Survey Monkey– 4Q

• Feedback Tools– Kampyle.com– Get Satisfaction

• Ensure you have a system for automatically monitoring website and SEO changes - AnalyticsSEO

Benchmark Ranking Data

Benchmark Ranking Data

Competitive League Table

Benchmark Analytics Data

• Fresh content• Landing Page Optimisation

– Ensure your analytics software tracks conversions– Benchmark against performance before redesign– Objections/Counter Objections– Landing Page Checklist – Have you thought of everything?– Test – Split A/B or Multivariate

• Online PR campaign• Link building• Track your ongoing SEO Campaign – Analytics SEO• Do interesting stuff and get people talking about it!

Ongoing Site & SEO Development

Project Scope Web Design Process University of Texas Integrated Website & SEO Analysis www.analyticsseo.comQuestionnaires www.web-redesign.com Bulk domain name checker www.databasepower.net Questionnaire Templates www.esurveyspro.com Project Management www.basecamphq.com Survey tools www.4qsurvey.com Project Management www.fogbugz.com Survey tools www.polldaddy.comE-mail clients www.mailchimp.comE-mail clients www.dotmailer.com

Site Architecture Webmaster Tools Google W3C Validation http://validator.w3.org Webmaster Tools YahooWebmaster Tools Bing

Visual Design Site Design http://balsamiq.com Initial Design Testing http://fivesecondtest.com Site Development Content Management Systems Drupal DIY Video Editor Animoto

Content Management Systems Joomla Avatars Site Pal Content Management Systems Wordpress Word of mouth tweetmemeSEO Plug-ins Drupal SEO-plug-ins Organising Content Optimal Sort SEO Plug-ins Joomla SEO-plug-ins Organising Content XML Sitemap generatorSEO Plug-ins Wordpress SEO

Testing Usability Testing Jacob Nielsen Community support Kampyle.com Test Designs Five Second Test Community support Get SatisfactionUser videos Userfly User behaviour Crazy EggX-Browser tests Litmus User feelings & task completion Feedback Army Functional & Performance Jmeter User feelings & task completion Mechanical Turk Functional & Performance Yslow Functional & Performance Google Web Toolkit

Launch Too many to mention! Benchmarking Automated Benchmarking Tools AnalyticsSEO Feedback tools Kampyle.com

Survey tools www.4qsurvey.com Feedback tools Get SatisfactionSurvey tools www.polldaddy.com

Ongoing Development Ongoing SEO Campaign Management Analytics SEO Page Optimisation Tools Google Website Optimzer Landing Page Checklist Wilson Web Page Optimisation Tools Vertster

Page Optimisation Tools Maxymiser Page Optimisation Tools Pagealizer

SEO Website Redesign Process Tools

Celebration (Post-launch)• Take pride in your re-designed website and enjoy a hot…

• Or a cold…

• Come and meet us on Stand 420 - We’ll show you some of our website redesign and SEO tools and some other good ones that didn’t make the presentation

Laurence O’Toole – feedback@analyticsseo.com - + 44 208 977 4465www.analyticsseo.com www.websiteredevelopment.com@analyticsseo.com