Accession Media

For those of you that know that I just moved into a new house, and that Accession Media moved into a new office-this posting isn’t about either of those. Though some more planning on our house move would have saved a ton of aggravation…

No, this posting is about moving your website - or rather, redesigning it. If you have an existing website that you are planning on rebuilding or redesigning, make sure you consider what your regular sources of traffic are. Especially if your site is larger (10’s to hundreds of pages) and depends on advertising revenue! Ask yourself these questions as you prepare to launch a new version of your website:

1. Is one of your major sources of traffic the search engines (Google, Yahoo!, MSN, etc)? What percentage of your monthly traffic comes from these sources? (Hint: check your web analytics referring traffic or acquisition reports to find out.)
2. When you launch the new version of the website, will the URLs of some or all of your sites pages change? Meaning will this http://www.yoursite.com/olddirectory/oldpage.html change to http://www.yoursite.com/newdirectory/newpage.aspx?

If the answer to #2 is “yes” and the answer to #1 is “a lot” or “about 40-50%” then you need to be sure to take a few steps to mitigate a looming problem after you launch your shiny new website.

What problem you ask?

The old assumption was that a new website launch would increase traffic. The shear beauty and usability off the revised site would inspire more visitors to stay longer. The press releases around the rebuild would drive far more traffic than was already coming on a daily basis. However, this was before the skyrocketing use of search engines in the past 7 or 8 years (I’m looking at you Google).

In that time search engines went from being a novelty that didn’t work so well to being the place to start your online session when you are looking for anything from new pressure gauges, to info on Multiple Sclerosis, to a local Indian restaurant, to a new car. This was in no small part due to the rise in the amount of content on the web, and the ever increasing ability and efficiency of the big search engines to index it all and present users with relevant results for their queries.

So where does this leave us today? Most websites (especially ones that have been around for a few years) that don’t have registration or for-pay login functionality will find that traffic from the search engines make up a big portion of their monthly traffic - usually anywhere from 40-80%! Once you launch that pretty new website you have officially broken all of the links that Google, Yahoo!, MSN and others have in their indices. When users perform relevant searches and your old pages come up, people will click on them and most likely get a 404 (”Page Not Found”) error. In short order the old pages will fall out of the index, but it may take a while for the new pages to get indexed and rank as well as your old ones did. The result can often be a significant dip in traffic post-launch.

So what can be done to mitigate this? Three critical things:

1. Make sure you look at your stats and see which pages are bringing in traffic from the search engines. Make a list of those URLs - say the top 100 - then 301 redirect (301 is important!) those old pages to the URL of the same or similar pages on the new site.
2. Look at backlinks in the search engines. Which of your site pages have attracted lots of links from other sites online? Make sure those pages are also 301 redirected to appropriate new site pages if they weren’t caught in step 1. Then attempt to contact the webmasters of the sites that link to your pages and get them to update their links. This can be arduous, but depending on the value of those incoming links may just be worth the work.
3. Make sure your new site’s 404 page is friendly and helpful. There will probably still be pages of your old site that weren’t caught in steps 1 and 2 above, and 404 pages are a fact of life online. However, if you make sure your 404 error page offers users options, you can help keep that traffic on the site. Example: “The page you are looking for couldn’t be found - use our search box above or click here to go to our site’s home page.” This is a basic example, but you can take this even further with 404 page functionality that senses the referring keyword of users hitting that page from search engines, etc. (You may find this book helpful in this area)

While these three techniques seem like basic, common sense “webmastering,” I’m constantly seeing many site owners forget about these basics in the flurry of activity that leads up to a new site launch deadline. These items are often left at the bottom of the project plan as a “nice to have,” but if not addressed before the launch can come back to bite you.

While there are no guarantees that these mitigation techniques will get your new pages ranking well very quickly (this is still going to depend on the other traditional SEO factors), they will help stave off a big post-launch traffic dip for sites that owe much of their traffic to the major search engines.

If you have any questions about this posting, or would like help analyzing your site traffic in preparation for a new site launch, we are always happy to help.

One of the most popular questions I get from new clients is “can we put one of those cool animated movies of my product/service/slogan/etc. as the first thing a users sees when they come to the site…and they we’ll go to the home page?” Wanting your site to move, play music, or speak to customers rather than just display text and images is a very common desire among business owners. Many people see these features as a way to set their sites apart from the competition. Do I agree with these views? The answer, as always, is “it depends.”

Many web marketing experts loathe the use of animation (specifically the use of Flash-based animation) in website design and development for several reasons. A few of those reasons are:

• Flash intros, even the ones with “skip intro” buttons, are only cool the first time your customer seems it. Do you want repeat traffic to your site? Are you prepared to put people through that animation EVERY time they come? Does that intro animation really help you get more leads/sales/etc? Or is it just something that you are the business owner think is “cool” but really acts as another barrier between you and your sale?
• Sites that are built entirely in Flash usually (but not always) are impossible for search engine spiders to crawl and index. The result? Sites built entirely in Flash rank terribly in search engines. Usually if you search the brand name in Google the home page will come up, but that’s it. No other rankings for all the other important keywords that potential customers are using if they don’t know the name of the company.
• Usually (but no always) Flash sites put more emphasis on looking and behaving cool and cutting edge than they do on usability. Always remember your sites goals (make a sale, gather a lead, get a newsletter subscription, etc). If your sites “cutting edge” interface is so cutting edge that people can’t find the “buy now” or “click here to sign up” button, it is ultimately a very expensive waste of time.

I happen to agree with all three of the points mentioned above, but I’m not an anti-Flash zealot either. It is possible to use Flash in ways that both mitigate the problems listed above, while capitalizing on the “cool” factor that Flash offers. Creating a search engine friendly all-Flash website is possible, but it takes quite a bit of extra work. A highly practiced Flash designer can create an all-Flash site that has very good usability and makes it easy for users to achieve goals on the site. As for Flash intros…I have no excuse for them. I can’t ever think of a reason to put a roadblock between your site and your users.

All that said, it is important to consider the additional cost of “cool.” Building an all-Flash website can cost considerably more than a regular HTML site. Building an all-Flash website that works well with search engines can cost even more. The question for the web marketer on a budget then becomes – just how important is cool? Can you achieve you site goals with conventional HTML pages? Do you really need Flash animation to get your customers to engage with your site/product/service? Far more often than not I would say the honest answer is no – you don’t need a Flash site. Sacrificing some of the immediate “cool” factor of an all-Flash site for HTML can often get the job done in less time, with less expense and better long-term results.

Have questions, comments? Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment below. Need help with your site? We’re always happy to discuss.