Complete website redesign - what to look for

[echo1]

We are having our website redesigned by an SEO company to increase CTR and for a better user experience and I was wondering what to look for and what key questions to ask. At the moment we rank very well for a few strong keywords and I m afraid that by rewriting the content and changing the website layout we might put at risk some of the rankings even for a brief period of time. This company seems to be very good so I need to know what to ask them to make sure everything goes according to plan.

Your thoughts are appreciated.

[EvolveCreative]

Are they doing some of the things we mention in our 4 D process? If not, ask them why.

[TheeDigital]

Echo,

"You hope to increase CTR."  Is this if the search engines?  If so you need to change your meta descriptions and meta titles, this might be able to be done without creating a completely new website.

As for a few questions here you go:

• What's their experience building websites?
• What does the website look like on mobile platforms(Is it responsive)?
• What will be the tree structure of the website?
• How easily can I change/edit content and meta information?
• Will the images be optimized(*something often overlooked)?
• Has their been a sitemap created?

Those are a few questions that come to mind right off the bat.

[KenyonManu3-SEOSEM]

Ask them for case studies or successes they have in similar situations. I would ask if the can give you print outs of some of their organic improvements straight form google analytics.

If you are redoing the whole website for better ctr, that makes no sense. your CTR from organic traffic will mostly be determined by your meta descriptions and how well they are written. Remember any words in your meta desc will show bolded when they show up in the serps.

Also your ranking position will have a lot to do with you ctr.

As far as user experience yes a redesign may benefit you conversion rate or your average order value. The only possible way a new web design could improve click through rate is if many of your users are using google preview to see your site before clicking and even then it would have to be pretty bad to deter them from clicking based on a small preview.

Are you sure they are not trying to increase relevance for +click through rates for ppc?

Overall I understand why you are wary. You site seems pretty fine to me and if your already ranking the only thing they should be changing is meta descriptions for a better click through rate, or at least that's the best starting point.

And redesigning the whole website you can best believe their is a possibility of losing some rankings temporarily or even long term. You may also improve but I would really just ask them to start with the meta descriptions which should be written as keyword focused ad-copy.