SEO relaunch: How to prevent ranking losses
Your hands-on checklist for an SEO relaunch 2024
by Aleksandra Tomic Plahuta
12.11.2024
A website relaunch is a great way to improve the design, functionality and usability of your site. But for all the benefits, a relaunch also comes with risks, especially when it comes to your existing search engine rankings. As an SEO agency, we show you in this article how to carry out a successful SEO relaunch and avoid ranking losses in the process.
1. planning and preparation
- SEO-Audit als erster Schritt: Select an SEO tool and carry out a comprehensive SEO audit of your existing website before the relaunch. Identify the pages with the best rankings and the most backlinks. Analyse the current page structure, content and technical aspects.
- Keyword-Recherche: Update your keyword strategy based on current trends and search volumes. Make sure that your most important keywords continue to be used in the content and meta tags.
- Backups erstellen: Make sure that you have complete backups of your current website. This way, you can quickly revert to the old version in an emergency.
2. technical realisation
- 301-Weiterleitungen: If the URL structure of the website changes with the relaunch, one of the most important steps is to set up 301 redirects from the old URLs to the new URLs. This ensures that users and search engine crawlers are directed seamlessly to the correct page and that the ‘link juice’ is retained.
- Saubere URL-Struktur: Make sure that the new URL structure is logical and SEO-friendly. They should be clearly named and contain no spaces, underscores or other characters, URL length less than or equal to 75 characters. Unnecessary changes to URLs should be avoided where possible.
- Meta-Tags und Header: Make sure that all pages have correct and optimised meta tags (title, description) and headers (H1, H2 etc.).
- XML-Sitemap und Robots.txt: Update the XML sitemap and the Robots.txt file to ensure that search engine crawlers can crawl your website efficiently. This should also be done independently of the relaunch or when creating new content.
3. contents and structure
- Inhaltsüberprüfung: Check all content for relevance and quality. Update or remove outdated content and add new, valuable information.
- Interne Verlinkung: Optimise internal linking to improve navigation and distribute link power within your website.
- Mobile Optimierung: Make sure your new website is fully optimised for mobile devices, as the number of mobile searches is constantly increasing and Google is introducing mobile-first indexing.
4. testing and launch
- Vor dem Launch testen: Carry out extensive tests to ensure that all technical aspects work. Test redirects, loading times, mobile view and form functions.
- Launch-Überwachung: Monitor the launch closely. Track crawl errors, 404 pages and other issues with the free Google Search Console.
5. after the launch
- Ranking-Überwachung: Monitor your rankings in the weeks following the launch. Minor fluctuations are normal, but major slumps should be analysed and rectified quickly.
- Backlink-Überprüfung: Make sure that your most important backlinks continue to point to the right pages. You may need to contact webmasters to update links.
- Analytics und Nutzerverhalten: Track user behaviour with tools such as Matomo, Google Analytics, etracker etc. Pay attention to changes in the bounce rate, dwell time and conversion rate.
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Useful tools for the SEO relaunch
- Google Search Console: Monitors crawling errors, indexed pages and helps with the submission of the new sitemap.
- Matomo: Tracks user behaviour and evaluates the impact of the relaunch on website performance.
- Screaming Frog SEO Spider: Identifies technical SEO problems such as broken links and duplicate content.
- Ahrefs: Provides detailed analyses of backlinks and keyword rankings.
- Moz Pro: Supports keyword research, rank tracking and site audits.
- Sistrix: Helps to plan the SEO strategy and offers competition analyses.
- GTmetrix: Analyses the loading speed of the website and offers optimisation suggestions.
- Yoast SEO (für WordPress): Optimises on-page SEO, including meta tags and sitemaps.
- Broken Link Checker: Searches for broken links to ensure that all links on your website are working correctly.
Conclusion
A website relaunch is a complex task that requires careful planning and implementation. With a thorough SEO audit, the right technical implementation and continuous monitoring, you can avoid ranking losses and benefit from the improvements. If you need professional support, we as an SEO agency will be happy to help you make your relaunch a success.
Avoid ranking losses during your website relaunch! Contact us for professional support and customised SEO strategies.
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