Transcript Slide 1
SEO & the Website Redesign Process
Traps, Tricks, Techniques & Tools Laurence O’Toole Director – AnalyticsSEO.com
+ 44 208 977 4465 www.analyticsseo.com
@analyticsseo www.websiteredevelopment.com
Who are we?
A UK software business on a mission to:
“Have the time of our lives building software that changes our customers' lives”
• Analytics SEO is a suite of online SEO tools for SEO agencies and companies with multiple websites • We also redesign a few websites every now and then!
Website Redesign Pitfalls
Problems stem from:
• Redesigning on a whim • No concerted plan or running before walking • Fallen out with designers/developers • Not analytical enough – changing pages that convert well • No research or survey data • No benchmarks or targets • Lack of understanding and knowledge of SEO • Unrealistic budget, resources or timescales • Inadequate security
Website Redesign Pitfalls
Common Traps:
• Change of domain or TLD – no redirection • Change in URLs – no redirects or global redirects • Indexed pages in search engines are not found (404 error) • Loss of site traffic • Loss of conversions on previously good converting pages • Loss of position in the SERPs • Loss of site in the SERPs • Loss of job?
Example Google Malware Page
Typical Website Redesign Process
Project Definition Site Structure Visual Design Site Development Test & Refine Launch
SEO & Website Redesign Process
+ Website Analytics, SEO Analytics + User Tests & Survey Results + Webmaster Tools + KPIs, Targets, Benchmarks + Website Analytics, SEO Analytics + User Tests & Survey Results + Continuous Website & SEO monitoring
Project Scope
• Why do you need a redesign?
• Establish Commercial Goals • Establish Project Goals • Analysis, Research & Reality Check • Agree Website & SEO KPIs/Targets • Budget • Team & Timescales
Useful questionnaires
www.web-redesign.com
Project Scope: Analytics & Research
• Website statistics – Site Visits, Popular Content, Conversion Analysis – Screen size, browsers, Traffic sources • Customer & User survey – Likes and dislikes • Log files – 404s, other errors
Project Scope: SEO Research
• Website Analytics – Add analytics & Webmaster Tools to old site (if not already added) • SEO Analysis – Basic Site Audit & On-Site Analysis – highlights obvious site issues – Competitive analysis • PPC Campaign analysis – Which keywords are converting?
– Consider using them in your redesign • Strategic Planning Gap – How large is the gap between my site and my competitors?
– Do I have the resources and desire to commit?
Basic SEO Site Audit
Competitive SEO Audit
Project Scope: Project Goals
Set Project Targets & Benchmarks:
• Create a set of benchmarks that you can compare at Campaign Start & Campaign End – Keyword ranking comparison – Competitive benchmarking – League Tables • Website Analytics KPIs: – Revenue, Sales conversions, Visits, Goals, – – No. Keywords & %Pages bringing organic traffic Unique Visitors, Page Views, Bounce Rate, Time on site, Brand engagement
Benchmark Analytics Data
Example: Organic Breadth & Depth
Project Scope: Project Planning
• Excel • Basecamp • Fogbugz
Site Architecture
• SEO Friendly – information architecture, navigation URLs, Meta Tags, coding (separation of HTML and CSS) – Not using JS links • W3C compliant • Old sitemap and hierarchy vs New Sitemap & hierarchy Treejack
(“Analytics for a website you haven’t built yet”)
• Plan 301 redirects • Plan to make it fast…
Site Architecture
Visual Design
• Sketches – sharing initial thoughts and ideas • Wireframes – sharing with the client • Test initial design – Internal team – Client – User groups
Site Development
• Which Content Management System ?
• Proprietary?
• Free/Open Source – Drupal – Joomla – Wordpress • Numerous SEO Plug-ins • XML Sitemap generator
Content
• Golden opportunity - How can you improve your site?
• What did your customers/users tell you?
– “If you were running our business how would you improve our website?” • Video - DIY Video Suite Animoto • Avatars Site Pal • Update Plan - build in feedback Kampyle • Make it easy for people to link to your content, e.g. tweetmeme • Community support – Get Satisfaction 2.0
• Organising Content – Optimal Sort
Testing
Type of testing:
• Functional & Performance • X-Browser testing • Usability
Options:
• Friends and family • Focus groups – internal and external • Usability testing labs & eye tracking tools
Online Tools:
– – – – – – Five Second Test – initial test of designs – clicks and keywords Litmus – X-browser testing for websites and email Crazy Egg Userfly – visualise user behaviour – heatmaps and clicks – watch videos of your users Feedback Army – Ask users questions and get them to perform specific tasks Mechanical Turk – Human Intelligence Task – – Jmeter - Scalability & performance - record interactions, playback multiple threads Yslow , Google Web Toolkit – Browser plug-ins and developer toolkits
Usability Testing
How much testing should I do?
• Jacob Nielsen one of the best-known usability gurus, says: • “The best results come from testing no more than 5 users and running as many small tests as you can afford.” http://www.useit.com
• SEO • PPC • Blogging • Social Media • Email • PR • Video
Launch
Sorry, there’s just not enough time to cover all the tools you could use to support your re-launch.
Benchmarking
• Compare initial results with campaign start • Post launch questionnaires and compare results with campaign start – – Survey Monkey 4Q • Feedback Tools – – Kampyle.com
Get Satisfaction • Ensure you have a system for automatically monitoring website and SEO changes - AnalyticsSEO
Benchmark Ranking Data
Benchmark Ranking Data
Competitive League Table
Benchmark Analytics Data
Ongoing Site & SEO Development
• Fresh content • Landing Page Optimisation – Ensure your analytics software tracks conversions – Benchmark against performance before redesign – Objections/Counter Objections – Landing Page Checklist – Have you thought of everything?
– Test – Split A/B or Multivariate • Online PR campaign • Link building • Track your ongoing SEO Campaign – Analytics SEO • Do interesting stuff and get people talking about it!
SEO Website Redesign Process Tools
Project Scope Site Architecture Visual Design Site Development Testing Launch Benchmarking Ongoing Development
Web Design Process Questionnaires Questionnaire Templates Survey tools Survey tools E-mail clients E-mail clients Webmaster Tools Webmaster Tools Webmaster Tools Site Design Content Management Systems Content Management Systems Content Management Systems SEO Plug-ins SEO Plug-ins SEO Plug-ins Usability Testing Test Designs User videos X-Browser tests Functional & Performance Functional & Performance Functional & Performance Too many to mention! Automated Benchmarking Tools Survey tools Survey tools Ongoing SEO Campaign Management Landing Page Checklist University of Texas www.web-redesign.com www.esurveyspro.com www.4qsurvey.com www.polldaddy.com
www.mailchimp.com
www.dotmailer.com
Google Yahoo Bing http://balsamiq.com Drupal Joomla Wordpress Drupal SEO-plug-ins Joomla SEO-plug-ins Wordpress SEO Jacob Nielsen Five Second Test Userfly Litmus Jmeter Yslow Google Web Toolkit AnalyticsSEO www.4qsurvey.com www.polldaddy.com
Analytics SEO Wilson Web Integrated Website & SEO Analysis Bulk domain name checker Project Management Project Management W3C Validation Initial Design Testing DIY Video Editor Avatars Word of mouth Organising Content Organising Content Community support Community support User behaviour User feelings & task completion User feelings & task completion Feedback tools Feedback tools Page Optimisation Tools Page Optimisation Tools Page Optimisation Tools Page Optimisation Tools www.analyticsseo.com
www.databasepower.net www.basecamphq.com www.fogbugz.com http://validator.w3.org http://fivesecondtest.com Animoto Site Pal tweetmeme Optimal Sort XML Sitemap generator Kampyle.com Get Satisfaction Crazy Egg Feedback Army Mechanical Turk Kampyle.com Get Satisfaction Google Website Optimzer Vertster Maxymiser Pagealizer
Celebration (Post-launch)
• Take pride in your re-designed website and enjoy a hot… • Or a cold… • Come and meet us on Stand 420 - We’ll show you some of our website redesign and SEO tools and some other good ones that didn’t make the presentation Laurence O’Toole – [email protected]
www.analyticsseo.com
www.websiteredevelopment.com
@analyticsseo.com - + 44 208 977 4465