Topic

The new menu is designed, the copy is shorter and the visuals look good. Just before launch, someone mentions SEO. Then we may find out that we are removing a page that brings in customers, or that simplifying the content wiped out the answers people came for.

I expect a redesign to bring a specific improvement, such as easier ordering or better-fitting leads. Sometimes we need a new website, other times it is enough to rebuild parts of it. And SEO helps us find out, right at the brief, how people find us and what they expect from the website.

SEO helps people find relevant content in organic search results and helps search engines understand what the website offers. What a company cares about most is whether it reaches the right people and helps them take the next step.

Today, people get some of the information before they even visit the website. Either directly in search (Google's AI features offer answers with links), or in one of the AI chatbots. A link, however, guarantees neither a visit nor a customer. Some people come for a basic explanation, others are already comparing suppliers and looking for terms or references. The website design has to account for both.

A prospect who already understands the service needs to hear why they should order it from us. So the goal can also be to help people who already visit the website find their way around.

Imagine a company that supplies air conditioning to households and small businesses. It wants more relevant leads and blames low traffic on its old website. First, though, I would want to know what exactly is not working.

A missing service page can be added, and a technical error can often be fixed. If people come but cannot find out where the company installs or what a quote includes, we need to change the content.

But when information is contradictory, services are scattered and every change runs into the limits of the original solution, rebuilding the structure and the technical foundation may make sense. I would expect an agency to recommend the scope of changes based on the cause, including a smaller intervention if that is enough.

Google recommends involving an SEO expert as early as the planning of a redesign. That is when we decide how to organise the content and explain the offering.

Our example company may structure its offering by product line. The customer, however, is looking for air conditioning for a flat and cares about noise or installation. Search queries help us judge whether the structure of the offering suits them. Analytics shows where they go next and where their journey ends. We also need to explore the demand the website does not yet reach.

Let's add the experience of the people who handle enquiries and interviews with customers to the data. We also need to take the company's business priorities into account. A table of search terms alone will not design the menu for us.

The result can be simple navigation with details within reach. On the page about air conditioning for a flat, the prospect learns what the company offers, how a job goes and what it needs for a quote. A page like that can also reach new visitors from search.

The details also help people who got a general explanation from AI. Google's AI features follow the principles of accessible, clear and helpful content, but meeting them does not guarantee that the website will appear in an answer.

Even a page that would not win a beauty contest can serve a company well. For air conditioning, it might be a detailed explanation of installation that brings in visitors and leads, and that other websites link to. If we replace it with two generic paragraphs, we lose the answers people came for.

So before the design, let's find out which pages bring relevant visits and how they help customers. We can change the look and the placement and still keep the useful content.

If we change the structure, we have to redirect visitors to the matching new content. Redirecting everything to the homepage does not help anyone and does not replace a deleted answer. Search engines and visitors must be able to reach the content even when the technical solution changes.

We do not have to keep everything. If the company stops serving part of the market, it can withdraw that offering even at the cost of some traffic. It should, however, know the consequences of its decision.

Before the change, let's record where people come from and how many relevant leads or orders the visits bring. We also care about their value. A higher share of submitted forms is not enough if the overall number of good leads drops. Let's also make sure the measurement stays comparable.

When comparing results, we need to account for seasonality, which most industries have. Results are also affected by competitors, other content on the website and changes in search or customer behaviour. Google describes these concurrent factors in its guide to debugging drops in search traffic. A before-and-after comparison alone will not tell us how much of the change the redesign caused.

But if an important page stops bringing visits after its address changes, let's check what happened to it. The explanation “search is changing because of AI” is rather convenient at that moment.

If we forget about SEO during a redesign, we risk losing content and visits that bring the company customers. The website may then look better but bring fewer leads. That is why we should think about SEO as early as the planning stage, while we can still shape the website and keep what works. Just before launch, the necessary changes may already mean going back to finished work, and after launch? Quite possibly an unpleasant loss of performance in an important sales channel.