Hi guys, let me first appologise for my recent lack of posts and social visibility of late. Anyway, down to business - I have been asked many times by clients and co-workers if simple redesigns effect SEO? I have recently worked on one particular client who luckily consulted me on what they should look at and consider from an SEO perspective.

There is still an abundance of creative designers who do not realise that any site changes WILL effect search rankings. It doesn’t matter how small these changes might seem, they will all contribute to the ranking factors of search engines. Each search engine uses different algorithms to determine how relevant a website is matched with a users query.

From my experience there are at least 4 levels a website may be categorised in whereby site changes will effect rankings in different levels.

For example:

Level 1 - A new site can make multiple changes to content and design and not see dramatic changes either positively or negatively.

Level 2 - A newly established website under a year old may see medium to long tailed keyword ranking changes but the highly searched terms will not be greatly effected.

Level 3 - An established website, usually over 2 years old, any changes in design or content can greatly effect positive or negative ranking changes.

Level 4 - A big daddy or industry leader, these sites have so much trust and link visibility that design changes or small content changes can go fairly unnoticed. In fact if done in the right way you can rank for other top terms very easily.

Factors to always consult an SEO on before making site changes

1. Meta Data - This should be managed by your SEO department or agency so you or the client should never decide to make “your message” more focused to your consumer.

2. Headers - A lot of in house copywriters love changing these to match new branding ideas or products but changing these can destroy rankings in highly searched keywords. These can include headers for sections of a site that may seem completely irrelevant to SEO but every header counts.

3. Navigation - If you don’t like the text or the order of the pages consult your SEO. Deciding to put links to your company history or contact pages before key products will ultimately lessen the value of those pages. It will also push the desirable keywords deeper in to the page code that the search engines read.

4. Images - Removing or adding an image is another red flag. The images will need to be optimised properly before added to a site, if more images are included this can present possible opportunities. A common problem is if the site logo is changed and added without being optimised, the company logo is often one of the first pieces of readable data a spider will come across.

5. New pages - If you have a new product it should always be looked at by your SEO team. The page should be optimised and placed in the correct place in your overall site architecture.

6. Content - Even a simple sentence change can effect search rankings, especially in the first two paragraphs. Make sure that keyword density is continued as to a previous design or you will see fluctuation in rankings between your top targeted keywords. If there is a new brand message find out which phrases need to be included that will benefit your current keyword strategy.

Overall if you want a new look or feel and want to maintain your current rankings then you should try and keep the site looking the same to the search engines, i.e. the website code. Ignoring the factors I have discussed will lead to shifts some may be positive but others will suffer which will mean more design and more money.