SEO / New Design

What are the most important things to consider when doing a re-design. I want to create a whole new design for my website but I am ranking for some decent words and wouldn't want to harm that. What would be your recommendations?

 

Try and keep the internal link structure the same or make slight improvements. If you have some good incoming links you shouldn't need to worry too much.

Always expect the worse case but if you are trying to improve the look of your site for the readers then go for it.

 

When you say keep my linking structure meaning if i had

domain.com/sub/sub1 I should keep that the same but where that link is on the page that wouldn't matter right?

Also would there be a major effect on rankings if I removed a lot of the links from the main page linking to different parts of the site? I think I have way too many links now on the homepage and I want to cut it down a bit.

 

Nash, that all depends, it's hard to give you SEO advice if we don't know the site in question... If you want to PM me, I could give you some pointers / improvements if you want.

 

It is the site in my sig.

 

Remember not to changes file names and extensions of the page if they are ranking well and optimized. If you change that file your rankings will drop..

 

Thats where a 301 redirect comes in.

 

So as long as the pages still exist, just possibly look a bit different I should be ok in rankings correct? Of course if I change keywords and writing on the page there may be an effect but as long as I keep the same type of link structure I should be ok right?

 

In Theory yes but always expect the unexpected when it comes to search engines.

 

Will do. Appreciate the help, I also have another SEO question that I would like to ask you through PM. If thats not a problem please respond, otherwise I appreciate your help so far in this thread!

 

Shoot ahead and I'll try and answer you as soon as possible.

 

Please PMB me

 

i agree with keeping the internal structure the same. Also try to ensure your page names remain the same as those will have matured over time in the google index. Changing the page names means that in essence you are starting all over again. I know a few sites that have been successful and then have redesigned their site and their traffic has plummeted because they altered the page names.