Client Worried About SEO Decline After Site Redesign
-
Hi,
We're in the process of redesigning www.directvillasflorida.com/ for a client. The client has recently expressed concern that their rankings may drop off after the change. Here are some facts about the site:
- As you can see, the current homepage is _very _keyword heavy.
- They have a DA of 26 and are ranking #1 for 'florida villas', higher than their more authoritative competitors.
- They are also ranking #1 in the mobile search results, despite not being mobile-friendly.
- Their link profile is pretty average and the anchor texts are pretty keyword-rich
- 'florida villas' appears 30 times with a 4.41% keyword density
- 'florida' appears 66 times with a 3.31% density
The client has admitted keyword stuffing years ago and hasn't changed anything because it worked and still is working. In the site redesign, we've cut out a lot of the spammy, keyword-rich content and he's worried he'll suffer because of this.
Any ideas what to do here? It seems clear that the site is breaching Google's guidelines, but, for whatever reason, isn't being picked up by Google.
Cheers,
Lewis
N.B. The client is just paying us for a redesign, not SEO.
-
Do not worry about your keyword ratio just worry about creating high-quality content with somebody that has much better grammar and writing abilities and I. (I use Grammarly or dictate to a coworker when posting on a client's site.)
https://www.deepcrawl.com/knowledge/best-practice/test-development-changes/
https://www.deepcrawl.com/knowledge/tag/website-architecture/
here are no fewer than five ways to test changes before they even go live and have any impact on performance:
- Test site vs Live site: crawl a staging site and compare it to the live one
- Test robots.txt changes
- Test a new XML Sitemap
- Crawl the site with modified URLs
- Test the impact of removing parameters
now if you are rebuilding use HTTPS it is not a powerful ranking symbol now however it is very smart to pull off to Band-Aids at once
- https://www.deepcrawl.com/knowledge/best-practice/the-zen-guide-to-https-configuration/
- https://www.deepcrawl.com/knowledge/news/https-when-to-act/
if you add HTTPS via HTTP/2 or cloudflare do not set HSTS for more than a couple days when setting up the site.
https://moz.com/blog/http2-a-fast-secure-bedrock-for-the-future-of-seo
USE https://blog.cloudflare.com/enforce-web-policy-with-hypertext-strict-transport-security-hsts/
HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS), which could also help with speed issues on HTTPS.
See
please do not take offense to the chicken it is how I feel about myself.
Sincerely,
Thomas
-
Are you sure the keyword stuffing is why they rank, or are they ranking in spite of it?
There may not be an easy way to know without taking a deep breath and jumping in, just make sure you have the ability to roll everything back in the event it goes sideways.
-
Is that site really so phenomenal if no one sees it because SEO best practices weren't baked into the design?
-
Hi Josh,
Our redesign, on paper, will make the site much, much better. However, like I say, my main concern is that we'll reduce the amount of keywords the client has shoved on the homepage years ago. It seems, however, that this old school tactic of keyword-stuffing has worked and Google is letting him get away with it.
-
people that get hung up on keywords are a pain but you should be forthright and tell them yes they will most likely see a drop in traffic for a minimum of 3 to 4 months.
Use this reference
https://www.candidsky.com/blog/the-seo-2015-guide-to-website-migration/
sincerely,
Tom
-
Oh, I know, I was just highlighting the spammy nature of their use of 'Florida villas'.
-
In regards to the content i would try to worry more about writing naturally and for the user rather than "keyword density" generally most people stopped measuring this years ago.
-
"If someone was going to do a redesign for me, they should be able to tell me how their new design was going to be a huge kick up for my SEO, visitor engagement, sales, and more. Design changes should be done well enough that the website owner gets multiple bangs for the buck."
I completely disagree, I know some people who can design a phenomenal website, yet they don't know a thing about SEO. That's not their job, their job is to offer a highly converting and inviting website NOT help it rank. If I went to a designer who does everything then I should be very wary of their work as after all a jack of all trades is a master of none.
-
I hate these situations, its one of those 'for the long-term' cases.
Sure they rank well now, but eventually Google might/will penalise them. At the same time, you are not being employed for SEO and the client must make the final decision with all the facts. If you are being employed for SEO I would stand your ground a lot more. But as you are not you can simply offer your professional opinion and leave it to them.
Sure, if you cut out the SPAM they might loose rankings, but if you dont cut SPAM they might get penalised.
Your way, they become future proof, the risk is safe, monitored and means no penalty just rankings that can still be improved over a relatively short period.
Their way, the risk is dangerous, their rankings could be destroyed for a long time and it could happen at any time.
I would simply explain that good SEO is also 'preventative' not just 'responsive'. Get it in writing, and cover your own ass and let him make the decision.
-
Well, yes, we have. The new site will be responsive and won't be as keyword spammy. In theory, that should help their organic presence, but the spammy keywords might just be the reason why they're ranking so highly...
-
If someone was going to do a redesign for me, they should be able to tell me how their new design was going to be a huge kick up for my SEO, visitor engagement, sales, and more. Design changes should be done well enough that the website owner gets multiple bangs for the buck.
N.B. The client is just paying us for a redesign, not SEO.
In my opinion, design is part of SEO because on-page optimization, site navigation structure, visitor engagement, and conversion can all be improved by a well-done design, and each of them can have SEO benefits.
So, I would tell the client how the new design will have multiple benefits. How he is going to get his money back. I want a designer who can do this for me. I don't want a game of chance.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Website and seo for categories and pages
I have a website with a number of specific locations listed in a directory. The locations are in categories but i also have several pages with the same titles and descriptions. Will this be a problem when it comes to seo
On-Page Optimization | | twiguins0 -
Product Tag Value on SEO
Do product tags for ecommerce sites have any benefit to SEO? Or are they redundant? i.e. thespacecollective.com/astronaut-moldavite-pendant (tags appear below the product name on the right)
On-Page Optimization | | moon-boots0 -
Two sites into one
I have two sites owned by one client, he wants to merge them into one keeping one website, but which one? I've been using the Moz Pro to look at the stats for both sites; page authority, inbound links etc, but they're both fairly close in results. The client wants to know what would be the best course to take with these two sites, what site should he keep and which should he merge? Any advice?
On-Page Optimization | | barrowr0 -
Seo for company services page?
I am creating a site for a Dentist with 30 pages of services in a mega menu. Other than the actual pages should there be a central page with all the services on it hyper linking to each one? Thanks Scott
On-Page Optimization | | scott3150 -
Does anyone know of an api for on site SEO?
I have searched for one, but really cannot find one that fits my needs. I am looking at making an on site grader / service that will check pages and point out SEO problems. One that I have found that I like is seorch.eu but they do not have an api. I do not want to reinvent the wheel if I do not have to. Also, the api does not have to be free, or it does not even have to be an api, it can be a self hosted application too.
On-Page Optimization | | LesleyPaone0 -
Redirect closing established site to another established site.
We have 2 ecommerce websites with duplicate product/category content that have been around for years. "Site A" since 2004 and "Site B" since 2011. "Site B" doesn't generate many sells and we want to close the site in fear that it may look spammy to google and since we don't want to upkeep the site. Couple questions:
On-Page Optimization | | Tuurbo
1. Is it possible that "Site B" has damaged "Site A" with google since they are so similar?
2. Can i 301 redirect all of "Site B" to "Site A" without hurting "Site A"?
3. If question 2 is ok, should i use the "Change of Address" tool in google webmaster tools to point "Site B" to "Site A"? Thanks!0 -
SEO and multilanguage site
Hi all! I have used a wordpress plugin called WPML which translates a webpage into another language so that I have a webpage in two different languages (spanish (main market) and english). I'm just doing the seo for the spanish market and I'm gonna start with the seo for the english one. Should I do it just the same as I had a one-single-language page? just with english keywords, etc. I guessit would only differ in the way I do the linkbuilding strategy as the markets are different Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | juanmiguelcr0 -
Creating Duplicate Content on Shopping Sites
I have a client with an eCommerce site that is interested in adding their products to shopping sites. If we use the same information that is on the site currently, will we run into duplicate content issues when those same products & descriptions are published on shopping sites? Is it best practice to rewrite the product title and descriptions for shopping sites to avoid duplicate content issues?
On-Page Optimization | | mj7750