How to protect your SEO isn’t always the first thing you think of when you’re thinking about giving your website’s homepage a makeover. Don’t worry, my friend, you’re in for an exciting project! Revamping your homepage is like giving your brand a fresh coat of paint, enhancing user experience, and adding new content or features.
But hold on tight because if you’re not careful, it could also lead to a drop in your search engine rankings. Fear not! In this post, I’ll guide you through the process of rewriting your homepage while minimizing any negative impact on your SEO.
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
Before diving into the redesign, let’s take a moment to plan our moves strategically. Consider the following aspects:
- Content: What new content will you add? What old content will you keep or remove?
- Design: How will the new design affect the layout of the page?
- SEO Elements: How will you handle meta tags, headings, and keywords?
Creating a detailed plan ensures we don’t miss any critical elements that could affect our SEO. Need some help with this? Sign up for our mega comprehensive checklist!
1. Audit Your Current Homepage
Create a benchmark to protect your SEO
Before making any changes, audit your current homepage. Use tools like Google Analytics, SEMrush, or Ahrefs to gather data on:
- Top-performing keywords
- Page load speed
- Backlinks
- User behaviour metrics (bounce rate, average session duration, etc.)
This audit will provide a benchmark to measure the impact of your changes and help you identify elements that are crucial to your current ranking.
2. Maintain Core SEO Elements
While redesigning your homepage, ensure that you retain or improve the following SEO elements:
a. Meta Tags
Ensure your new homepage has well-optimized title tags and meta descriptions. These should include your primary keywords and accurately describe the content of the page.
b. Headers (H1, H2, H3)
Keep your headings keyword-rich and structured properly. The H1 tag should be used for the main headline of the page, while H2 and H3 tags can be used for subheadings.
c. URL Structure
If possible, keep the URL of your homepage unchanged. Changing the URL can lead to broken links and loss of traffic. If a change is necessary, ensure you set up proper 301 redirects from the old URL to the new one.
If you do need to make significant changes
- Prioritise changes: Start by focusing on the most important updates that will
have the biggest impact. This could involve updating outdated information,
adding fresh visuals, or optimising specific sections for target keywords. - Phase the updates: Break down the remaining changes into smaller, manageable phases. You can tackle sections of your homepage one at a time or focus on specific types of content such as images, then copy and finally headers.
3. Monitor and Analyse
After each phase of updates, closely monitor your website traffic, rankings, and user engagement. This will help you identify any potential issues and fine-tune your approach for subsequent changes. The key is that you can protect your SEO.
Remember…
- Implementing an incremental approach may take more time overall, but it greatly minimises risk and gives you better control over the SEO impact on your website.
- Taking small steps towards improving your homepage will lead to big results in attracting and engaging with the right people at just the right moment!
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