ranked high-but want to re-do site, what to expect?

marthrock · 01-04-2006, 08:49 AM

We currently have a site that is ranked in the top 3 for our key key word in the big 3; and ranked in the top 10 for say 50 other key words. We have worked very hard to get it there but it was done with a site that is vintage 90's and we need to improve the user expereince big time. With that in mind, and we build a beautiful new site with all of our SEO t's crossed and i's dotted, what kind of slippage can we expect? and if so, how long will it take to climb back up? Our sales have somewhat slipped, we think, because of the difficulty in navigation and its something that needs to be addressed...what are our options? Has anyone done this before and can you relate to me what you encountered and how you addressed the issues?

Many Thanks and a Happy New Year to all!

John Scott · 01-04-2006, 11:35 AM

It all depends on how much the redesign changes the pages. If you're just changing graphics while keeping the same text, page titles, anchor texts, etc, I wouldn't think that you would take a big hit.

How much traffic do your top rankings generate?

Michael Allison · 01-04-2006, 11:44 AM

As far as I know, search engines love sites that aren't static.

Change can help you a lot.

-Michael

marthrock · 01-05-2006, 09:32 AM

Most of the issues are within the check out section. The site is www.albertsgifts.com and our "main" key word is music gifts, however the site is so unique and so well indexed that if you were to search on an obscure but no less powerful term such as music jewelry, we still come up pretty high. I can see if I could push to just redesign the backend, that might be less time consuming given that there are anywhere between 7000-12000 products at any given time. I would hate to start over in regards to all of the SEO work we've done over the past 2 years. We went from no rankings, even in the 2nd and 3rd tier SE's, to top 5's and 10's in almost all of them..The traffic is good, its the conversions that are not, and that I think has more to do with check out and navigating towards it than it does overall site navigation.

MadKad · 01-05-2006, 10:26 AM

well i am doing the same very soon and i am changing the hole style of my site this will include some link changes and also adding a mod-rewrite

then all my pages will be fully SEO frendly and lots better content on each page so over all the website will be alot better

BUT i know now i will drop like a stone were i am high ranked but im not worred cos if i have been there before and im only making the site better i should go back but only time will tell

Also remember a website can not stay the same all its life else it would become a bit out of date then your users wouldnt come back so what would be the point of a high ranked website that isnt used

GO FOR IT

marthrock · 01-06-2006, 08:32 AM

I agree. I suppose change is hard and to a certain extent you have to suffer through it. I just worry about the sales we'll lose, but as you say if you've been there before, you should be able to get back.