Launching a new website is an exciting process. It’s a process that should refresh and revitalise the image of your company, improve the customer journey and most importantly, it should develop your business.

But what happens when it’s done wrong? The enquiries stop coming in, the transactions stop and your traffic falls off a cliff. Disaster. What should have been an exciting time for your business has potentially destroyed it.

Why?

There are a whole host of reasons why this happens but simply put, if the transfer to a new website is not performed correctly, Google believes you no longer exist. As a result, your existing links fall out of its index, your ranks plummet and the traffic stops flowing.

Sadly, we hear similar stories to this time and again. We have even heard of people being told that “when you launch your new website, you start again in the eyes of Google”. The reality is, this is simply not true, and ‘starting again’ can be avoided.

Done correctly, launching a new website (even when moving to a new domain) will not impact your rankings at all. In fact more often than not, if your new site has been set up in the correct way, you will see an increase in rankings. It really will be the exciting new start to your business that you hoped for.

So, if you are in the process of launching a new site, don’t fall at the final hurdle. In addition to planning your new website, also make a plan for transferring data from the old site to the new.  We recommend building five key steps into the process.

  1. Leave the old website(s) up until you are ready to launch the new website.
  2. Run a complete map of every page within your current website and decide which page on the new website it should link to.
  3. Create 301 re-directs from every old page to the correct new page on the website. It’s important to use permanent 301 redirects not temporary 302 redirects.
  4. If you are moving domain, ensure the redirects are in place from the old domain to the new domain and tell Google that you are moving the website within Google search console.
  5. Following launch, make sure you monitor things closely and ensure that your traffic and rankings have not been affected. If you notice any changes, ensure you perform a full investigation to what may have caused the problem.

If you would like help with this process, optimising your new website, ensuring the launch runs smoothly or simply delivering more traffic to your current website, please just drop us a line on 0191 23362797 or email [email protected].

If you have already launched your new website and suffered a reduction in traffic, don’t panic, all is not lost. There are still steps that can be taken to ensure your website recovers. Contact Podium for assistance.

 

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