Website redesign projects 'need SEO'

Marketers should ensure they integrate search engine optimisation (SEO) into any website redesign project, it has been urged.

According to Search Insider's Rob Garner, it is vital to keep SEO in the loop when it comes to web design as sites tend to be revamped every two years or so.

Ways in which marketers can ensure redesigned sites are SEO-friendly include setting up a plan to deal with URL redirects, looking at analytics and log files to see which bits of the old site are worth keeping and checking that rich media content is indexable by search engines.

Mr Garner also warned against removing web content that has previously helped the company to see high rankings in search engine results.

"One mistake I see frequently is when content is removed from a site, with no replacement content to support the valuable rankings and visibility it has previously created," he said.

BusinessWeek reported in 2006 that one Australia-based small firm, Sew What?, managed to enhance sales by 45 per cent through a web redesign project that involved SEO.