To keep up with the ever-changing pace of the internet world, it’s advisable to redesign (or at least dramatically update) your medical practice’s website every couple of years.
Chances are, if it has been awhile since you performed any website maintenance, SEO practices have changed since your last update, so it’s important to take them into consideration during your next redesign.
Here are five SEO factors that should be on your radar for redesign:
1. 301 re-directs
While you shouldn’t change the URL structure too dramatically, if the website’s current URL structure is not user friendly then a website redesign is the perfect time to correct this. By using a 301 re-direct, you will preserve the SEO practices you already have in place.
2. Content
You know all that amazing content you’ve written for your website? While this is great for your site’s visitors, it means next to nothing unless it is also optimized for the search engine spiders that will comb through your site’s content to direct users to your site. This means that during your redesign, you should take the time to check your content and ensure that the content is still high quality, relevant and accurate. You should update any outdated content and transfer any keywords used into the newer content—if they’re still relevant.
3. Google tools
Google Analytics and Google Search Console are among the best SEO tools out there. You should highly consider incorporating these two tools to your practice’s new website before you launch your new website as they can make your transition much smoother. Additionally, these tools will help give you a look at the differences between the traffic before, during and after your website launch in order to measure its success.
4. Indexing
Take care to keep your practice’s new website from becoming indexed before your website officially launches. This will keep the new (unfinished) website from being improperly ranked before it’s fully complete and polished.
5. Meta information
If the content for your new design is not changing, then the meta information for your pages shouldn’t be altered either. This includes making sure that title tags don’t revert to generic placeholders and that the header (H) tags, meta descriptions and title stay the same for each page of the new website since they can be important for organic traffic.
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