The importance of 301 redirects
So you’ve had a great new website designed for you. Lots of lovely new information and pages have been added and with some very visual calls to action. You think it’s going to be a winner – right? Wrong!
A lot of web companies do not realise the importance of using 301 redirects. These will carry the strength over from each page of your old website and keep the links coming through to your new one. So any link or follower that was attached to the old site will now come straight through to your new web pages.
“A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect which passes between 90-99% of link juice (ranking power) to the redirected page. 301 refers to the HTTP status code for this type of redirect. In most instances, the 301 redirect is the best method for implementing redirects on a website.”
Moz
How will this affect my business?
If you have this procedure carried out when your new website goes live, then you should see no drop in enquiries, no drop in visitors to your website and no loss in people linking to you.
But if your web company does not deal with the redirects when the site goes live, then you will need to start from scratch, building the strength back up in your new site, dealing with the daily struggle of getting new people to link to you and coping with the general apathy that can be there with gaining new interest in your work.
You must ensure that all the pages redirect somewhere on your new website, even if they are no longer active – so if you reduce the number of pages, then they must still point somewhere – very important!
Ensure you include the important information
Another point you must think about, is pages that worked for you on your old website should most probably be carried over in one form or another. Some web companies may not think about this, but if a “services” page works on your old website and is found well on search engines; bringing you in new business, then you must ensure this is repeated through to the new website. Many forget this and then wonder why their phone has stopped ringing!
Any good web company who knows about online marketing will do this as a matter of course; as well as setting up Google Analytics, so you can still check your statistics.
So if you have a new website but it has lost strength, then this is possibly the reason. Make sure your new web design company knows about online marketing! Otherwise you may be looking at a new business…