Does your website really sell your products and services?

SEO, Social Networking, Training and Website marketing at The Colchester SEO Company, Essex

Perhaps you’ve read up a bit recently and had a good hard look at your website and found it wanting a bit on a number of fronts. Perhaps you’ve realised that it needs a little bit of “renovation”, a new look, some new content etc.  If that’s the case then you might want to consider getting a quote from a web designer. We can help with that at Colchester SEO.  We work with some wonderful designers and when you use us you know we’ll be giving a fair bit of priority to the SEO, so you won’t just get a fabulous new look website, but you’ll get one that hasn’t lost all it’s Google ranking because of the changes you’ve made.  Because this is exactly what can happen when you “redo” your website without paying attention to the SEO.

If your website isn’t working for you, a redesign might be a great idea!

If you are feeling flush, then you could consider redesigning your website entirely.  Like everything in life you pay for what you get and you’ll see a lot of adverts for cheap websites, but if you really want it to look good and certainly better than your old one, then do your research and get a good “designer” i.e. someone who designs website as opposed to someone who builds them. There is a difference and not so many so-called designers actually have graphic design qualifications.

Designers and developers can work together to create/redesign websites but they often forget the SEO

Designers frequently work in conjunction with developers to design and build websites. Developers might be able to build you a website but perhaps the design will not be quite as slick as you would like.   So look at other people’s websites, look at your competitors’ websites, there will usually be a credit for the designer so you can find the sort of thing you like this way.  Also, do some research on the internet just to get ideas and finally consider designers that friends or business colleagues recommend. Most web designers will have a portfolio of their work on their own website. It pays to do your research and in the early stages, ask about the impacts on SEO and how to remedy these, as there are impacts on redesigns particularly.

Renovation can be cost effective but has SEO implications

If you can’t afford a completely new website then perhaps consider a “renovation”, again you still need to do some research to find a good designer who can tidy up and improve what you already have. In some cases what you have might be impossible for a designer to “dress up” your webste and then your only option could be a new website.  The way your website looks is really important though and a good website not only looks attractive but functions in the way you want it to and therefore needs to be built well and optimised well.  It’s a balance really between three different factors, good website design, good web development and good SEO and you need to pay attention to all three with new websites and redesigns.

SEO is a very important factor if you redo or refurbish your website

So the next two points on my checklist are things you need to think about if you have now come to the conclusion that your website needs a new look.

3.  Look at the Search Engine Optimisation whilst you’re doing this.  If the designer doesn’t offer SEO services then find someone who can do the SEO in conjunction with the designer/developer.  There are now lots of designers who offer in-house SEO and this works well as everything is under one roof.  When you are getting a new website or renovating your old one, SEO should be considered at the planning stage, i.e. layout, keywords, tags etc, news updates and future social media planning if you are not already doing something there.  Think ahead, not just about what you want to do now.  Remember when you redo your website, you will lose a lot of the ranking it has built over the years, so you need to have a plan to make sure the impact is minimal before you go ahead and that means working on the SEO whilst the website is on the dev server and a programme of SEO boosting afterwards.  Otherwise you could lose all your traffic.

4. This is a good time to think about how your website is updated and who is going to do it.  One of the things that search engines don’t like is seemingly dormant sites, where nothing changes for months on end.  If you rely on someone else to update your site, you will often find that it doesn’t happen.  So y9ou need to think about a Content Management System for your website so you or a member of staff can update it in-house.  You can get this done as part of a package with an SEO provider or developer but you do need to think about it in advance otherwise you’re website becomes another static site that slips down the ranking.

If you require further information on Search Engine Optimisation, Web Design or Social Media contact  sue@thecolchesterseocompany.co.uk