You've probably had the day prominently marked on your calendar for weeks if not months: the date you plan to relaunch your company website following a redesign.
So no wonder you feel a bit deflated after being told it behooves you – or, more likely, your Las Vegas web design company – to conduct a prelaunch search engine optimization audit.
If you can take the long view, this is outstanding advice – allowing you to catch and fix issues now before the new site debuts and, depending on your web contract, perhaps saving you added expense, too. Yes, your relaunch date might be delayed. But a postponement is a small price to pay for the assurance of knowing your new website withstood a technical, analytic, content, link and benchmarking review while it was lined up, side by side, with the previous one.
Technical review
After scrutinizing how your new design, images and layout appear, page load times should be the focus of your energies, especially if you're also changing servers. The consequences of slow page load times on the volume of organic traffic can be catastrophic. Google makes this issue simple to diagnose and fix with its Google PageSpeed Insights tool. After this exercise, your redesigned site should be tested to ensure it is “mobile friendly” since the number of people who access websites from their phones continues to grow. Google's Mobile Friendly Testing Tool can help.
Analytics review
The key here? Guaranteeing your analytic tracking code appears on every page of your redesigned website – and that it's programmed properly. Since you're probably using Google Analytics, do yourself the extra favor of identifying the relaunch date so the graphs clearly delineate the previous website from the redesigned one.
Content review
Chances are good that you've already undertaken a comprehensive content review with your Las Vegas web design team to ensure your chosen keywords are generating results. Then again, you might be leaving this project for “later.” Either way, keywords require constant management. If you're adding new keywords, create a new page of content to accommodate each one rather than try to “cram” or “stuff” a keyword where it doesn't find a natural fit. At the same time, check that the accompanying photos are sized to fit; uploading a huge image for a small space slows page load times.
Link review
Optimizing internal links is a natural progression from adding (or editing) content. But don't overlook the opportunity to add additional internal links, too.
Benchmarking
Think of benchmarking as providing that extra peace of mind – a way to validate how much organic traffic is coming to your website from all the search engines and knowing where your keywords rank at all times so you can continue to monitor your redesigned website after it goes live.
You might be party to some of these audit activities – or you might place them all in the hands of the most reputable Las Vegas web design company: ADTACK. Call 702-270-8772 for a consultation and see how our creative team members live and work by the calendar, too – no matter at what stage your website happens to be.
