Common Questions About SEO-Safe Web (Re)Design

1) I Already Have Great Rankings For Several Of My Pages, Will I Lose Them?

There's no reason you're rankings should chance as long as your content doesn't. If your content changes it needs to equal the old content in relevance.

If your URL's change then you have to use 301 redirects so search engines know they should now look at that new URL instead.

2) I Have A Lot Of Links Coming In Too, I Don't Want To Lose Them

As with the old web pages, 301 redirects can be set up to make sure all existing links and SEO juice will be transferred to your new website.

3) I Actually Quite Like My Old Content, I Just Want To Update The Look And Feel Of The Site

No problem.Many websites use a separation of content and design. The same content would simply be shown in a new design.

If your website's design and content are intermingled your developers will go through a different process but again the content can be kept as-is

4) I Have A Great Design Idea For My Website, Including Several Sliding Widgets And Complicated Design Elements - Will It Affect SEO?

Google has made many advancements in recent years and design elements should not negatively affect your websites performance in Google search, so long as the content can be crawled by Google. In order for Google to see your JavaScript content it may need to crawl your JavaScript files; don't block the robots from doing so.

5) So JavaScript Is Now Totally Safe?

It's true that links within JavaScript do get parsed but sometimes there is no associated anchor text. That means that an important ranking and relevance element would be lost, at least for some links. Its best not to rely on Google to get it right - if you are serious about SEO result then there is no problem presenting your links in plain HTML.

6) OK, But How About Flash? Can Flash Be Indexed?

Yes, Flash can be indexed - but the point is don't overdo it. There are negatives to using Flash such as no anchor text (as with JavaScript). Also, many new iPhones, iPads and Macs do not have Flash support as default.

Consider Flash to be like video. It's good to put a few videos on the site to improve it but you'd never make a whole site out of video - so don't make your whole site with Flash.

Now Read

• The Difference Between Adaptive Design And Responsive Design
• 100+ Questions You Must Ask When Developing A Website
• Dress for Success: Web Design for Lasting Impression

^{* Images adapted from International Monetary Fund, Raymond Bryson, Jon Olav}