Launching V2 of my site - what questions to ask the SEO Agency

[Andy-Halliday]

Hi

I am in the process of launching a new version of my site and I know I need to get my current SEO Agency to check and test certain aspects of the site so that I don't lose any rankings.

The problem is I am unsure of everything to ask them and I was wondering if someone could help me out.

I don't want to have missed something basic and therefore want to give them a checklist to confirm they are happy before go live.

Any help appreciated

[BCutrer]

To start I would make sure you have your current site structure well mapped out and that they are working with the designer to make sure pages aren't being dropped. A great tool to use is Screaming Frog for this. We find with larger sites and ones with extensive blog content that is the biggest issue that any potential 301's are in place when the new site rolls out so as not to lose rankings from broken inbound or internal links. I'd also make sure the site maps are updated and ready.

You may also want to make sure the architecture of the site hasn't changed dramatically for major pages. I would look to see what are your top pages for landing pages in Organic search and make sure they aren't being buried deeper in the site for no reason. So a page may have been mysite.com/awesomelandingpage and with a redesign it gets moved to mysite.com/genericfolder/subfolder/awesomelandingpage and it could lose some of it's link authority.

Just a few thoughts....

[DJ123]

Ask them to evaluate your link profile and ask for suggested improvements.

Also, while they are doing that, you should take a look at their own link profile and see if they know what they are talking about.

[Andy-Halliday]

Hi

I agree and a lot of work has gone into making improvements and hopefully they are all done, but its more the basics I am after to make sure something fundamental isn't missed and the improvements don't get to have an impact as the basics wasnt checked.

[EGOL]

If you are revamping the site, it is a great time to find out what you can do to improve your rankings rather than worrying about losing them.

So, I would have the current SEO review the site and report back on what can be done to improve.  Then I would make the same request of an SEO consultant.  Once I have their recommendations I would compare, discuss with them, do research and make a decision about what to do.

Paying the consultant is not a waste of money.  The price should be small compared to your potential sales increase going forward.  It is also education for you.

This process might increase your understanding of your website, understand what the improvements can be and feel more confident about moving your rankings up rather than worry about losing them.