Web Site Re-Directs Often Go The Wrong Way

What happens when you’re driving down the street and you come to a Wrong Way sign (do not enter) and somehow you enter? Well hopefully you live to tell about it and only have minimal damage to your vehicle.

It’s not that different when you redirect your web site and don’t have a good plan to steer through to your new destination and bring along all of the site’s marketing enhancements that you’ve made and paid for over the years.

In most cases, if your site is search engine optimized (Define) it’s definitely worth your time to transfer your titles and descriptions to the new landing pages. That’s a given. In addition review your content and make sure that you either pick it up in its entirety or include key blocks of copy with your optimized key words from your old site, especially for your new home page. It’s not unusual that new sites have an entirely new look and layout, so be aware that you may need to do some work to re-optimize. And at least understand that your results may be less forthcoming if you do nothing.

If your old web site is going away all together, make sure you have permanent redirects pointing to your new site. Otherwise you can lose all your links that you work so hard to set.

And what about Pay Per Click campaigns?
Ignoring existing PPC campaigns when you launch a new site could lead to a dead end for your potential customers, or in Internet Speak, a 404 error page — where qualified sales leads go to die.

It takes a little more time with Yahoo! than with Google to stay “In Sync”, however I recommend you make the effort to redirect your Urls on all of your paid campaigns.

All of your web site’s enhancements can make a big difference on how well you accomplish your business objectives. Don’t forget what you’ve already got working for you.

If you use an Internet agency, be sure to tell them you are launching a new site. You might even let them assist you with a plan for redirecting the site.

A little planning can go a long way. Don’t go down the road to ruins.

[tags] Web Site Re-Directs, Search Engine Optimization, Pay Per Click, Re-Direct Urls, Landing Pages, Home Page, Key Words [/tags]