THE ROLE OF

USER EXPERIENCE &

WEB DEVELOPMENT

IN SEO

MARCH 2017

ABOUT NETELIXIR

2

OUR TEAM: 100+ fanatically analytical search

marketers, operating in three

countries.

OUR PARTNERSHIPS:We are a Preferred Partner of both

Google and Bing.

OUR VALUE: We combine our expertise and our

proprietary technology to help

businesses get found, convert visitors

to customers and acquire game-changing consumer insights.

PAID SEARCH& SHOPPING

MANAGEMENT

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

PAID SOCIAL MANAGEMENT

TECHNOLOGY{ }SERVICES CONSULTING++

LXR:MULTI-CHANNEL ONLINE

MARKETING TECHNOLOGY

LXR MARKETPLACE:FREE SEARCH MARKETING TOOLS

FOR SMALL BUSINESSES

LXR GUIDE:PAID SEARCH MANAGER FOR

SMALL BUSINESSES

WEB ANALYTICS

DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY

ON DEMAND TECH SUPPORT

ABOUT CHRISITE LABARCA

4

Christie has worked in the digital marketing industry for about eight

years, with a special emphasis on the technical elements in

organic search and SEO. Extensive experience in auditing and

identifying causes of deeply-rooted technical issues that impact

SEO performance for small, medium and large websites.

At NetElixir, Christie helps manage organic search for clients, and

places emphasis on educating our clients and their teams.

ABOUT HALA ALI

SEO Manager at NetElixir

Hala Ali has been in the digital marketing field for more than a decade and

specializes in SEO with a focus on small and mid-sized retailers.

She has consulted with pharmaceutical firms, local businesses, and sites

like Club Wyndham before she joined NetElixir in 2016.

4 INTERACTIVE SESSIONS (2PM ET, EVERY DAY)

Tuesday 3/14: The 2017 State of SEO

Wednesday 3/15: Adopting a Mobile-First SEO

Philosophy

Thursday 3/16: The Role of User Experience and

Web Development in SEO

Friday 3/17: Building a Winning Retail SEO Strategy

http://info.netelixir.com/seo-checklist-2017.html

FREE WEBSITE MIGRATION SEO CHECKLIST

POLL

Have you ever experienced an

extreme drop in SEO following a

website change?

A. Yes

B. No

C. I learned my lesson and most

recently have prepared

D. Unsure

AGENDA

• Type of Website Development and UX Changes

Concerned With SEO

• High-Level SEO Elements to Consider During a Website

Change

– Mobile-First Design

– Website Architecture & Scalability

– User Experience

• Importance of Planning & Preparation

• Empowering Your Team With Experts

• Phases of Website Relaunch/Migration or Changes

– Pre-Launch

– Launch

– Post-Launch

• The level of potential impact on organic will be determined by

many different factors for any given scenario.

• Always ask, how can this change impact my current SEO

performance?

• Developers have a job to develop a website. Assume that

they’re not thinking in terms of SEO when making website

changes.

• Major changes (such as a platform migration, redesign,

switch to responsive or mobile-first design) definitely

warrant a need for detailed preparation and plan to ensure

minimum traffic loss.

WHAT TYPE OF WEBSITE CHANGES SHOULD

WE BE CONCERNED ABOUT FOR SEO?

Mobile-First Design

• We know that Google’s main goal is to provide the best

possible experience to the user. Ever-changing ranking

signals typically coincide with changing user behavior.

• Mobile-first shift in the recent months is due to rapid increase

and ultimately shift of users’ primary search device from

desktop to mobile.

• Planning out your website change - design for mobile-first!

HIGH-LEVEL SEO ELEMENTS TO CONSIDER

DURING A WEBSITE CHANGE: MOBILE-FIRST

USER EXPERIENCE

AND SEO

Am I showing search engines that I’m providing the best

possible user experience for searchers?

• User experience is an umbrella that encompasses major

elements, such as mobile-first design and friendly website

architecture.

• Heat Maps can be of extreme use to help understand how

visitors interact with your existing site.

– What links are getting the most clicks? What are

users ignoring? Is it the placement of the links or is

the content not worthy of being on the homepage?

• Understanding how users interact with your website may

take time and extra resources, but it leads to insights that

help us design for a better user experience. Ultimately,

this increases engagement and drives conversions.

IMPORTANCE OF

PLANNING &

PREPARATION

• Website redesigns and migrations involve different teams

that have different roles and responsibilities.

• It’s the job of the web developer to develop the website

and it’s the job of the designer to design the website.

• Never assume web development team knows how to

develop the site, while also optimizing for organic search.

• Expect to see a 15-20% decrease in traffic when doing a

major site redesign or migration.

HOW DO I ENSURE

I PROPERLY

PLAN & PREPARE?

• Planning ahead with SEO experts as early on as possible.

• Communication cross departments or teams consistently to

ensure any changes made on the web development side have

not impacted recommendations or work done from the SEO

side.

• Review all major SEO elements and identify at what point in

the redesign/revamp process they should be addressed.

• Some tasks may or may not be incorporated into your timeline

for launch.

Pre-Launch Phase

At Launch

Post-Launch Phase

• Each of these phases should have detailed items that you or

your SEO team/agency are reviewing and making

recommendations on.

• Working with the developers on this timeline structure to

ensure that review and analysis is completed at the

appropriate/most opportune time for maximum efficiency.

PHASES OF WEB DEV CHANGES

AND/OR TRANSITIONS

PRE-LAUNCH

• Site Crawl (Old Site)

• Staging Analysis of New Site

• Redirects

• Testing Website Performance &

Usability

• Baseline Metrics

PRE-LAUNCH:

SITE CRAWL

(OLD SITE)

• Crawl the entire old site using a tool such as Screaming Frog

to help understand the ins and outs of the site, the

weaknesses and strengths, etc.

• Generally a full audit should be conducted.

• Understand the ins and outs.

• Identify what will and won’t be transitioned.

• Identify any existing redirects, broken links to address.

• Identify all website pages to be redirected.

PRE-LAUNCH:

STAGING ANALYSIS

The goal in performing a staging analysis of the new site is

to ensure:

• No-index/robots.txt tags on dev, appropriate pagination on

new site, etc.

• All content is transferred over to the new site.

• All technical elements and meta tags are in place.

PRE-LAUNCH:

REDIRECTS

(CRITICAL!)

What is a 301 redirect?

Why is it important?

• User Experience POV: Will redirect the user to the page

he/she is looking for, instead of an error page.

• Technical POV: It transfers a pages authority from one URL to

another.

Common Scenarios

• Changing of URL structure.

• Changing of navigational structure.

• Revamping an entire website.

• Condensing multiple pages into one page.

PRE-LAUNCH:

301 REDIRECTS

(CRITICAL!)

• Redirect Planning and Mapping

– Determine which page URLs will be changing, pages being

removed, etc.

– Identify the most valuable page URLs on the old site (via GA,

Majestic, rankings, etc.).

– Combine with pages identified in website crawl to make sure

nothing is missed.

– Identify all pages that have to be redirected, if necessary.

– Map out 301 redirects from old pages to new pages.

• Often Overlooked

– Businesses tend to overlook how critical it is to have a proper 301

map set up before site launch.

– 301 redirects pass page authority from one page to the other, help

preserve rankings on search engines.

– Redirect users to a page that will ultimately speak to the users

intent/experience.

PRE-LAUNCH:

TESTING WEBSITE

PERFORMANCE

AND USABILITY

• Test the staging version of the site in a mobile-first approach

– Test via common devices (iPhone, Galaxy).

– Chrome Dev Tools allow you to test different devices and views.

• Test in mainstream browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Edge,

Internet Explorer.

• Test for usability, design, and navigation. Also, look out for

the way the browser handles any technical changes made.

– For example, the switch to https encryption.

PRE-LAUNCH:

BASELINE METRICS

• Establish baseline metrics to measure impact of transition.

• Ranking Reports

– SERP ranking for top keywords

– Number of keywords in SERP for website

• Google Analytics

– Overall traffic reports

– Top pages

• Backlink Profile Overview (Majestic, Moz, etc.)

• Google Search Console

– Crawl errors

– Mobile usability

– Pages indexed

• Page Load Time (Mobile & Desktop)

LAUNCH

• Update Robots.txt files and any no-

index tags.

• Properly configure Google Analytics

and other tracking tools on new

site.

• Prepare to upload and submit an

updated XML sitemap.

• Utilize change of address tool in

Google (only if changing domain).

• Annotate changes in Google

Analytics.

IMMEDIATELY

POST-LAUNCH:

TESTING 301

REDIRECTS

• Using the 301 redirect map, crawl all of the old URLs to be

sure they’re all properly redirecting to the new pages with

a 301 response code.

• Check for 301 redirect chains

– We want to make sure that we minimize the number of

redirects for a user navigating our website.

– Internal links should be updated if there was a URL change.

This should take the user directly to the new page, taking out

the extra redirect which impacts page speed.

POST-LAUNCH

• Keep a close eye on crawl errors

in Google Search Console.

• Run a site crawl again, preferably

a site audit to identify any red

flags or pressing technical issues.

POST LAUNCH

• Monitor the number of pages

indexed (in GSC and on site

search).

• Observe performance metrics

benchmarked regularly.

– Any significant ranking drops?

Declines in performance? For a

specific channel?

• Measure page speed and

performance on devices and

browsers again, to compare to

benchmarked metrics.

http://info.netelixir.com/seo-checklist-2017.html

FREE WEBSITE MIGRATION SEO CHECKLIST

QUESTIONS

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