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Innovative Marketing Web Redesign: 3 SEO Snafus To Avoid

Mark Parent August 28, 2014, 10:15:00 AM EDT

Don’t let the prospect of “shiny and new” deter you from what the real goal of your innovative marketing website redesign should be: to improve what lies beneath.

Ok, ok – maybe you really do need to get the lead out on the aesthetics too. So, absolutely add some awesome and beautiful new CTA buttons. Pump up the brand presence. Fancy up your tag lines and hero image. Modernize to the hilt.

But…DON’T SKIMP ON THE SEO!

Now that we’ve beaten our point to death…let’s talk about how to approach your innovative marketing web redesign from an SEO perspective – specifically, on the mistakes you’ll need to avoid in order to ensure your gorgeous new website gets FOUND!

SEO Snafu #1: Putting SEO Last. You wouldn’t build a brand new flagship store in a place no one could find it, right? The same concept applies to building your new flagship website. SEO should be front and center as a priority during your initial planning stages for the new site. From structure to meta data, it’s all important – sometimes even more important than a fancy new logo or the re-launch itself.

SEO Snafu #2: Ignoring What’s Already Working. A redesign of aesthetics doesn’t necessarily have to mean a complete overhaul of content too. The problem is – it’s really tempting to do it ALL over. But maybe, just maybe, your site is already solid on the SEO front – or merely needs a tune-up. Don’t rush to judgment on the content before it’s been thoroughly analyzed.

Look into the key metrics like monthly average new and unique visitors, inbound linking domains, number of pages that receive traffic and top performing keywords. Does your site deliver in some respects and is it falling short in others? Focus on its failings and play up where it sings.

SEO Snafu #3: Skipping The Competitive Keywords. Ok, so maybe you sell digital cameras and can’t possibly compete with the likes of Best Buy. Why bother optimizing for the keyword “digital cameras” at all? Well, because you sell DIGITAL CAMERAS. Don’t avoid or skip a commonly searched keyword and opt to use a lesser known keyword merely because you stand a chance of landing higher in a Google search on that weird and potentially awkward phrase.

Not only will it make your content flow awkwardly, if you’re overusing keys that make less sense, the almighty algorithms at Google, Bing and so on will eventually sniff you out, thus harming your rankings. Innovative marketing experts can help you to make those competitive keywords work for you with geo-targeting and other methods – and the best part: your content will be readable by humans!

Remember, no matter how beautiful the new site is (and how much you pay designers, writers and programmers to pretty it up) …if you build it and don’t do your SEO right, trust us, they won’t come.