Discussing SEO With Clients: Why A Website Redesign Enhances SEO Strategy

Your clients would like to see optimal results for minimal work. For this reason, it can be difficult to convince them that a website redesign enhances SEO strategies. However, if you try to redesign a site without taking SEO into account, you are going to face bigger problems down the road.

Start Off by Discussing SEO

Start off by explaining to clients what will happen if you ignore SEO in your redesign. Explain to them how a website redesign enhances SEO strategies across the board. A redesign is essential and should be part of your client’s budget. There are a couple of risks to point out.

1. You May Have to Redo All Your Content

It is impossible to create effective content without taking SEO into consideration. If you create content without thinking about SEO, you may need to go back and redo all the new content you made for your website when you start your SEO strategy. There are a few reasons for this.

First, you’ll be unsure as to what keyword terms you want to rank for. If you write content that doesn’t include appropriate keywords, it will be difficult to go back and include the terms naturally. Second, you may be unclear as to who makes up your target audience. The content you write for the wrong audience is useless and will need replacing.

2. You May Have Technical Mistakes

Technical mistakes may mean you require a site migration in the near future. This is a huge waste of time. Taking the technical side of SEO into account now will allow you to decide on:

• HTTP or HTTPS
• The canonical version of URLs (to avoid duplicate content)
• Whether you want separate domains for different countries or languages

Build a Ranking Faster

Next, talk about how fresh content leads to better rankings on the search engine results pages (SERPs) — and in less time. There are a few reasons why this is the case.

1. Visitors Want New Information

Users are looking for new insights, ideas, and data. They don’t want to find content that repeats what they’ve heard before or information they could find on a competitor’s site.

2. Search Engines Also Want New Content

Search engines give preference to new content, as it tends to be the most relevant. Furthermore, search engines look at how often the site publishes new content as an indication of quality.

3. You Can Target New Keywords

Customers are using new search terms all the time. Fresh content allows you to target these terms and increase your rankings.

Why A Website Redesign Enhances SEO

Finally, you should point out a few of the other benefits of starting a new SEO strategy at the same time as a website redesign.

1. Capitalize On the Latest SEO Trends

Depending on when your last redesign was done, your website may be using many SEO tactics that are outdated or you may be missing out on new trends. Although you are likely tweaking your strategy to add new tactics to reflect search engine algorithm updates, starting from scratch is the best way to ensure that your website is gaining maximum web traffic.

2. Improve UX at the Same Time

Many years ago, SEO meant just designing for search engines. This is no longer the case. Today, it is equally important to think about users. This is where UX comes in. When your redesign encompasses SEO, it will cover elements of UX like:

• Increased Speed — You can always go back and check the speed of your pages, but it is better to avoid elements and code that slow loading speed from the beginning. Search engines will be focusing on page speeds this year as part of their ranking system.
• Avoiding Redirects — The more redirects you have, the longer the delay to load the page. You need to try to avoid redirects whenever possible. However, you will need some to maintain existing pages that have high SEO value. It is essential that you implement these redirects properly to avoid error pages. To make the most of this SEO value, save the best content for new pages.
• Increased Accessibility — Pages need to be mobile responsive to ensure that they appear on all devices. They also need to load on all versions of browsers. It is better still if the content is readable for all users. This is possible when it is accessible for screen readers and it is possible for users to zoom in to increase the size of the text.
• Making it Visually Appealing — Interesting, useful information alone is insufficient. The design of your website must be attractive, or users will go elsewhere.
• Improved Navigation — It is equally important that your website be easy to use. As well as making it obvious where users should go to find the content they want, UX involves placing the best content in prime positions.

Is a Website Necessary?

All the above assumes that a client is willing to create a website in the first place. Some clients may believe that they can forgo a website entirely. However, without a website, it is impossible for a business to grow.

You need to explain why having an SEO-optimized website is necessary for being found online. Of course, businesses can find customers using other means, such as through social media, but these methods are slower. Plus, users will still expect the business to have a website — to obtain more information about products, services, and the brand as a whole.

There are plenty of reasons why your clients need a new SEO strategy along with their website redesign — and there is no reason why it’s a bad idea. If your clients have any objections, use the above arguments. For instance, if they are concerned that a fresh SEO strategy will incur more time and effort, demonstrate how the opposite is actually true, especially when you take into account the lower rankings, the redoing of content, and the need to return to your website to make changes for SEO.