Latest / ThinkInsideTheSquare / How to Redesign Your Squarespace Website Without Losing SEO Rankings [106]

Transcript

How to Redesign Your Squarespace Website Without Losing SEO Rankings [106] · ThinkInsideTheSquare

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: I am going through a classic millennial midlife crisis right now, but I can't afford a Porsche, so I'm taking it out on my website.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: I have recently redone everything on my website for the second time this year, and I just launched a brand new Inside the Square yesterday.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Personally, I'm pretty excited about it.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: I went really cool and kind of rogue with all of the design elements that I added.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about sketching things out on my kitchen counter and photographing them and turning them into elements on the page.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: I crumpled up paper and took pictures of that to make backgrounds.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: I had an awesome photo shoot with a real 90s zine vibe to it.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: It was a ton of fun.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: But that is not what this episode is about.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: What I want to talk to you about in this episode is what I did that no one's going to see.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: The incredibly important behind-the-scenes aspects of a website redesign that a lot of people don't really think about until it's too late.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Becca from Inside the Square, and in this episode of Think Inside the Square, I'm going to be sharing with you what I did before, during, and after my website redesign photo shoot to make sure that I didn't leave Google wondering where everything went.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because what's the point of redesigning your website and making it look awesome if no one's going to see it?
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: So in this episode, we're talking about SEO, search engine optimization, and what you need to think about if you're going to be redesigning a Squarespace website.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: For a transcript of this episode, along with the links to any resources I'll mention, visit insidehesquare.co forward slash podcast.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I should mention, before I go any further, the term Squarespace is a trademark of Squarespace Incorporated.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: This content is not affiliated with or endorsed by Squarespace Incorporated.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's just my opinion as one Squarespace designer to another.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now, before we get into the good stuff, we've got to talk about the difference between a refresh and a redesign because those are two very different things.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: If you're playing around in Squarespace and you found a really cool new font that you want to use and you changed up some of your colors and your color palette, maybe you swapped out a couple images for some fresh headshots that you got taken.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's very important to understand that is a refresh.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: That is not a redesign.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now, does Google care that you have a new color palette?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Probably not, but you should tell them anyway.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Once you make some changes to the content on your site, maybe you adjusted a few titles, you swapped out a few images, but the core content's still there, you should still submit those pages to Google Search Console and ask it to re-index.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Take a look at the new stuff that you've added.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: But you don't need to resubmit your site map, you don't need to worry about URL redirects.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: That is a simple refresh and you should not stress over the SEO of that.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're doing what I just did, a redesign.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about everything that used to exist, it's gone.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: You started on a brand new site, you've got brand new content, brand new pages, linking to other pages, new images, new keywords, new page titles, new H1s, new everything.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: That, my friend, is a redesign.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that is what we're talking about here in this particular episode.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: So if you redesigned your everything, where do you begin?
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Let's start with step one.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Before you launch, I want you to find out what you currently rank for and then figure out what you want to be known for.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because chances are that's two different things.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: So open up Search Console.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully you have this installed.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: If not, this redesign is a perfect time to make sure Google's getting this data.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: But let's say you've already done this hard work here, you're looking at Search Console.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Open up the Performance tab and check out the queries and pages.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Queries and pages is going to tell you what people were searching when you showed up.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: And this is incredibly important.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Then I want you to evaluate all of the pages on your website and think, okay, am I going to keep this?
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Am I going to redirect it to something new?
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Or am I going to scrap it entirely?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Don't be afraid to scrap it entirely.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: But if it's a page that got a lot of traffic, something that was showing up a lot according to your analytics and your search console data, I strongly recommend that you at least redirect it to something else.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Not just a 404 page, but make some kind of landing page that lets people know why this has changed.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now you'll also see some content in there that might support the old you and not the what you want to be known for right now version of you.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Don't be afraid to edit that content a little bit, but leave some legacy stuff there so people and Google aren't too confused when they get to your new website.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: At first, when I did this redesign, I was going to remove every single tutorial that I've ever made.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: And the truth is, I have removed hundreds, but I didn't just remove them completely.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: I kept a top 10 list.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: I told people where to go to find them.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that way, even if Google stumbles or there's an old backlink out there somewhere, people won't land on my site and go, what the heck?
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: That wasn't the right thing.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: They're going to land on my site and go, oh, I was looking at something old.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Here's something new.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: So think about that.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: What do you want to be known for?
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: What were you known for?
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Do you keep the things?
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Do you direct them somewhere else?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Or do you scrap it entirely and not leave people hanging?
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: All right, let's move on to point number two.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: You are about to hit that button to launch.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Before you do that, I want you to triple check literally everything.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to triple check those old links, double check your redirect list and make sure you're sending things to the right places.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Open up the demo site on your phone and click around on different things.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure it's usable.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you've only looked at the mobile editor on your computer, right there in Squarespace, and you haven't actually looked at it on a phone, you are in for an afternoon of surprises, my friend, because the mobile editor in Squarespace, it's designed to look like different sizes of screens, not necessarily one specific device.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: So you will very quickly find that the layout you actually have on your phone is very different than the layout you're seeing on the screen.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Things will be a little bit off.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: So please take the time to triple check everything.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to pop that site open on your phone, click around your navigation, select buttons, make sure hover effects weren't doing something important because there are no hover effects on a phone.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure that everything looks good and triple check your redirect list.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Inside Squarespace, it's called URL mappings, but anything that was on that list of a URL that you're gonna scrap or something you're gonna forward somewhere else, make sure that that is on your redirect list.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Double check it and triple check it.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: All right, let's move on to step three.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Let's assume that you've launched what are you gonna do right after?
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Let's assume everything went awesomely and your redesigned website is now available on your own domain and you're very excited and ready to rock.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: I need you to do something for me that's probably gonna make you roll your eyes.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Test it again.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you expected to hear me say that.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: I really do want you to double check all of those redirects that you've set up, make sure everything is going where it's supposed to, make sure that the page titles are accurate, make sure there are no broken images, make sure everything is clickable, make sure you're ready to rock.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: And most importantly, that those old URLs that should be redirecting somewhere else, make sure that works because your very next step is to resubmit your sitemap to Google.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: We need to tell Google, hey, we just made a bunch of changes, here's where the new everything is.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're like me and you have hundreds of old pages that need to be re-indexed and directed somewhere else, this is going to take some time.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I strongly recommend doing this.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then a week later, let's go back and double check your work.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's the final phase of making sure that we've optimized our redesigned website.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: It happens a week after launch, and here's what you're gonna do: you are going to see traffic changes.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: Things are gonna wobble.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: That is perfectly normal and perfectly okay.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, if you don't see any traffic changes, that's kind of a red flag that something went wrong somewhere.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I want you to rest assured that seeing things happen on that chart where things are going to decrease and increase for all kinds of weird stuff, super normal for the first week.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, you're hopping back into Search Console because I want you to double check all of the pages that should be de-indexed, all of the pages that are pointing somewhere else.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: A redesigned website should look different, but it should not leave search engines wondering what's going on.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now, one thing I want to mention here is that I keep saying Google, Google, Google, but Bing still exists and some people use it.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: So if you get a chance, check out Bing's Webmaster Tools and make sure you follow the same steps for getting your new site re-indexed there as well.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to update everybody.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now, one more thing I want to mention is a new feature from Squarespace.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Inside its SEO AI visibility feature, we have a file type that we can add to a site called an LLMS.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: This is something that's being used by AI crawlers to understand exactly what your site content is about.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there's definitely mixed information out there about how effective this is, but the fact that Squarespace has prioritized making this a part of its AI visibility is making me pay attention.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I actually had AI generate one for me.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: I shared the new site map that I have, I shared my top most important pages, and I shared a list of my top business goals all in a single prompt with AI.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, hey, I need you to help me create this LLMS.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: What information do you need from me to make this magic happen?
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now, to be clear, I told it to ask me five questions or less because I've noticed if you leave stuff open-ended with a lot of AI out there, it's going to ask you a bunch of questions and you'll rarely get to exactly the destination you were hoping to get to.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: So again, I said, hey, here's my new sitemap, here are my top pages, here are the major business goals that I have with this redesign.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: I need you to help me create an LLMS file for my website.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Ask me five questions that will get you the information you need to get this done.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: It asked me the questions, bing bang, boom.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: I've got something to copy and paste or write into my AI visibility feature there inside Squarespace.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: All right, let's recap this here really quickly.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Refresh versus redesign.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: You changed colors, you changed fonts, you've got some cool new images.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's a refresh, don't stress.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: Send that over to Google Search Console if you're changing up one or two pages and ask it to review the content there.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're doing what I did and you're scraping everything and starting over, you've got a lot more work to do.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to evaluate what you're gonna keep, what you're gonna redirect, and what you're gonna let go of, and make sure that everything you used to have is going where it needs to go.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because as soon as you hit that button and launch everything, you've got to let Google know that things have changed.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to see a lot of fluctuation in your analytics and in Search Console, and that's okay, that's what's supposed to happen.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Just make sure that it understands what's happening and you're the one to tell Google the last thing you want is for it to be confused.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: Also, don't forget about Bing, Webmaster Tools.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure that everything is showing up there for people that use Bing as a search engine.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: And there are different AI models that use Bing as well, so definitely pay attention to Bing.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's pretty darn important.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: All right, we went through a bunch in this episode, and I want to thank you for sticking around with me.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Becca from Inside the Square.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you want a transcript of this and if you want a copy of the redesign list that I went through myself, the whole process, start to finish of exactly what I checked on my website before I hit publish, head on over to the show notes, insidesquare.co forward slash podcast, forward slash one zero six.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for tuning in.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you enjoyed this episode.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: I would love it if you checked out my new website.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: I had way too much fun creating all those hand-drawn doodles and animations and adding some vibrant pops of color, new pictures, new layouts, new everything.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm super excited about it.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: So go check it out, let me know your opinion, and if you want any help with your own redesign, I'm here for you.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Hello at inside square.co.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: You can email me anytime.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for tuning in.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: And most importantly, have fun with your Squarespace website.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Bye for now.