Month: November 2025

Is your new website redesign hurting your SEO rankings?

Many businesses will get their website redesigned and wonder why their Google rankings have taken a dive.

With the old website they were doing nicely and sitting on page 1, but since the launch of the brand new website their online SEO has taken a big hit.

This is common and happens all the time with businesses that think their great rankings will follow them around. This is not the case and unless you follow these steps to prevent any loss for your Google rankings you will find that your new web redesign is more of a burden than helpful.
Most businesses don’t know about how a new site can have a negative impact on your SEO and go blindly into design and build without ever thinking about the consequences, which can be devastating. There’s nothing worse than getting really excited about the launch of your new website only to find that your rankings have tanked.

Following are some really useful tips to ensure that your website redesign does not negatively affect your SEO and all the hard work you have put into getting to page 1.

Firstly you need to ask yourself the question: Why does my business need a website redesign?

Websites are the shopfront to your business online and like with any retail outlet it needs a refresh. Stale, old, outdated designs with dated technologies are not only a turn off for your customers but they can also damage your SEO. People now demand that what they view online is the latest and the greatest and if your website fails this test then it can harm your image and damage your brand and reputation.

Ideally, you want to showcase your business in the best possible light with a dazzling new website that literally blows people away when they see it. This is why a redesign or revamp is vital and it should be done every couple of years. By ignoring this and forgetting what your customers expect you are really giving your competition an advantage. If they have a better, more appealing website that is ranking above you there is no way you are going to be able to compete. Simple as that!

Plus you have to know that you are really giving your competition the edge and in fact helping them gain a larger share of the market. There are so many cool new marketing add ons and technologies available on the market at the moment that help you capture sales leads and market to your clients that utilising them is a no brainer. These new swath of modern technologies are a real bonus for businesses and are in most cases simply added onto your new website all at pretty affordable rates. Think of all these brand new whizz bang technologies like online ordering or ticketing systems, live chat widgets that make your website more customer focused. All of these new ‘tech gadgets’ need to be considered.
So let’s now look at what you have to consider in terms of SEO.

When you redesign your website there are a number of critical factors to consider to ensure that your old web authority and trust or what’s termed Google Juice is passed from the old website to the new one.

Here is a list of the most important ones:

> make sure all links are working correctly You do not want to have old URL’s that don’t exist anymore

> probably the most important factor is to make sure that old URL’s are redirected (via 301’s) to the corresponding page on the new website. This will ensure that the authority between web pages is passed on. It’s amazing how many businesses forget about this 1 critical factor and end up loosing all the good authority they have built up over the years. You can fix it but in the interim your rankings will suffer and the worse part about it is that it may take a month for Google to reindex your site and restore your rankings.

> now would be a good time to check the website copy on the new site and make sure that it’s Google compliant and there is no hint of any duplicate content.

> Make sure that the websites titles and descriptions are updated as well. If they were working well on the old site, keep them. If you feel that they are in need of a bit of fine tuning, now would be the best time to do it. Some people think that changing your titles and descriptions can harm your SEO. This is true if they do not match the page content. So be careful to keep them relevant and on topic. Also stick

> make sure all internal links between pages and blog posts are all working.

> A REALLY important factor is to make sure that the site URL’s and navigation all follow a set of rules that make it easy for the search engines to crawl and index. Everything should flow naturally and be easy for the user to navigate. Think about what your clients are coming to your site for and cater to this need with a simple site structure, clear navigation paths and easy to follow URL’s. For the sake of SEO you want to have keywords or phrases in your URL structure. For example a perfect URL structure for us would be hoppingmad.com.au/web-design. Google will index this a lot easier if the content on that page is all about web design and the titles match up to this. See below and you can see how perfect everything lines up; the titles’ descriptions, as well as the actual web page. Google loves this kind of stuff and it works really well.

inline_970_https://hoppingmad.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/web-design-and-seo.jpg

Have a look at all your in bound links.

A website redesign is the best time to have a complete SEO audit and the best time to prune or get rid of any redundant or non compliant links that may have been built in the past by some other SEO agencies. If your new site is on a new CMS platform then many of these links will be useless unless 301’s have been put into effect. Google has really tightened up it’s in bound linking criteria and will punish those sites that appear to have been over zealous in their attempts to optimise certain keywords. Login to your web master tools and see if there are keywords that have been recklessly over used and trim them back with the launch of the new site.

If your thinking about a web redesign and are concerned about maintaining the integrity of your online Google position please get in touch with us here at hopping mad designs. We have done this all before and know what it takes to preserve your rankings.

Choosing The Right Domain Name For Your Business

Never Use Trademarked Domain Names
Never register a domain name that has previously been trademarked or a domain name which is similar or nearly the same as your competition. It is always very tempting to try to follow what industry leaders are using for their domain name, but it is good to have a point of difference and be unique with your domain name. For example you will never be able to use names like Coke or Google or Nike in your domain name but if you are in the foot wear industry you will be able to have a name that reflects this, just not the name Nike. Also, if you are in the beverage/ soft drink field you will not be able to use the work Coke in your domain name. You will have to try to come up with something original that still reflects who you are or the product you are selling. If you find this process difficult, you may like to employ a copywriter who will be able to do this for you. At Hopping Mad Designs we have our very own in house copy writer who will be able to help you choose a great domain name that not only works for your business, but is also very search engine friendly


Dominate your Industry and Try to Register Different Domain Names

If you are serious about using your website as a marketing tool and want to get business from your website, then you should really start thinking about protecting the various plurals and close spelling mistakes that your name could be. Think of how you would feel if someone registered a domain name that was very close to your name. In most cases the cost to secure a name is very inexpensive, so spend so quality time thinking about all the possible name alternatives and then got for it. There are heaps of domain name registration websites that you can go to online to conduct your research.
Think of words like printer and printers or wine merchants and wine merchants.
You may even go even one step further and register a domain name that is geo specific to your area. This is a great way to attract clients and will do wonders for your rankings. For example, if you are a web designer in Sydney, think about having the word Sydney in your URL. Alternatively, if you want to target the Bondi area only, then have the word Bondi in your domain name.

If you want to dominate a category then you might like to register a few domain names and have them pointing to your main website. A great example of this is a skin specialist. He might want to register a few separe domain names that reflect certain parts of his service offerings such as: skincancercheck, sunspotremoval, tattoremoval etc etc. This is a great way ofcovering off different areas of the business online and dominating the market for anyone searching in this particular area.

You can go one step further and ask your web design team to design and develop micro websites for each separate domain name. This is an amazing marketing tool and powerful sales weapon if implemented correctly. The benefits to your business are amazing if you are looking to use the search engines to generate revenue and sales inquiries.

Hyphens Are a Big Mistake

Not only is this difficult to type and spell out to people over the phone, it often confuses the end user who needs to have things as simple as possible online if they are going to get to your web page. Even if your name would have a hyphen in it, it is vital not to use it within your domain name. Confusion is the key here and you really want to make people as comfortable as possible when typing in your domain name.
Ensure That You are Able to Get Top Level Domains
A “.com.au” ending of your doamin name, is the most trusted by far for Australian internet users and people searching online. The reason for this as business owners will have to register an ABN number to secure their domain name with this prefix and this just adds that extra level of trust for the consumer. If you are thinking about have your website optimised for any other countries, such as the USA or Singapore you might like to register the .com and .co.sg suffixes as well. Most companies will register the .com in any case just to protect their intellectual property. Protecting your domain name is a very good way of protecting your good name online and stopping your competition from securing this.

Avoid Numbers or Ampersands

Unless you are a household name avoid registering your business name with numbers ot shortcuts. Never use the numeral ‘4’ instead of for, or adding a ‘&’ instead of a and. This will avoid heaps of confusion and issues when your site is being indexed by google as well as spelling errors by people typing in your domain. Also think about the number ‘ 0’ which can be confused with ‘o’.
Keep it Simple

Domain names can be up to 67 characters and this means you have quite a bit of online real estate to play with when registering your domain name. People are time poor and unable to remember long difficult domain names. The trick here is to keep things as simple as possible, yet very relevant. Business owners may like to over keyword stuff their domain name with as much information as possible, but these types of names are very hard to remember. For example, if you are a removalist in sydney you might like to have www.cheapnfastremovalistsydneycompany.com.au as your domain name. But this is way to complicated and needs to be shortened. Same goes for abbreviating the name to www.cfrsc.com.au. Look for something in between that’s reasonable, easy to remember and a bit catchy as well. If you are a commercial business, remember it is a good idea to have you service or product in your domain name, but not too much more.

Be Industry Specific about your Service.

Ideally, you should be looking at having your name or service within your URL. Think about what the internet user will be typing into Google and go from there. If you are a landscaper or gardener, its a good idea to have that as part of your URL. If you are going to be implementing a search engine campaign ( SEO ), then having a name in the URL is not overly urgent. But, if you are not going to rely on the services of a professional SEO company, then having service and product specific names in the URL should give your site a bit of a boost. Of course, this will not guarantee page 1 rankings but it should be the shot in the arm you need to help you get there.

Register Your Own Name

If you are a famous person, professional, blogger or some one who publishes a lot of online content then you may like to register your own name as the domain name. This helps in so many ways; it makes it super easy for people to find you, you are protecting your name and intellectual property online, only you will have your name and no one else. Just think of the damage that could be done if someone has registered your name and is publishing nasty or malicious content. If this has happened to you and you are unsure about what course of action to take then you need to consult with an online reputation management specialist who will be able to help you untangle this mess.


Look for Expired Domain Names

Every new website that is built will need search engine optimisation work carried out on it before it will rank. If you don’t have the funds to invest in such a strategy ( you may be a business start up or just testing the waters with a new idea / business proposition ), a short cut is to look online for expired domain names that are in your industry. Reason being, is that they might have already had some back links pointing to it and will perhaps have some page rank authority. The higher the page rank your URL, the better it is for your potential ranking. You can go online to find your page rank. If it is over 2 or 3 and is available then you should snap it up. This will save you heaps of time and money in building up authority for a brand new domain name.

You have to be very realistic about your domain name choice. Do your home work and spend time on this process as stated previously, it will pay huge dividends for you if the correct name is chosen. Getting a professional to help you in this process may seem like overkill, but belive me it is well worth it. The internet is dotted with the remain of companies that make mistakes and by choosing a domain name that’s perfect for your business is one way of increasing the chances of your business being an online success.

If you are still unclear about how to choose the right domain name for your business and need some clarification please do not hesitate to call me on 02 9360 8514 or email me steven@hoppingmad.com.au