What if You Relaunch or Migrate Your Site and Lose 30% of Your Traffic?

To be completely honest with you, this is one of the most expensive problems when it comes to website redesigns and SEO. The problem when you’re relaunching your website is you’re pulling together so many different functions – your developers, designers, marketers, writers, analytics, SEO, and content people.

You probably have a project manager managing the process, but that’s in the best-case scenario. I’ve personally seen one too many website relaunches go wrong to not say anything about it: they are by and large a crapshoot. The development team is under so much pressure to meet the deadline, they can’t handle any more requirements. The design team gave their original designs, and have watched everyone else change their original vision. Marketing and project managers are just trying to keep everything together. The SEO and content teams will probably be brought in two days before the website launch, at which point it’s too late.

I’m not here to solve all of your problems with a new website relaunch, just one of your most crucial problems: making sure you don’t lose organic traffic after a launch.

When it comes to SEO for a new website, the stakes are high.

It’s either one of the most crucial items on the project managers list, or completely forgotten. Time and time again I’ve seen developers claim they understand SEO, but when it comes down to it much of the value is lost with a new website relaunch. Developers know about 301 redirects, but don’t have time to implement them properly at the very end. They forget about XML sitemaps, the robots.txt, meta robots, page titles, meta descriptions, and more. If you only have developers, designers, and general marketers on board, and your website is the key driver of revenue for your business, you’re most likely missing out on a piece of the puzzle.

Website Relaunch SEO Process

The process and steps for managing the SEO portion of a website relaunch share some core characteristics, but they differ depending on what type of relaunch you’re doing, who’s involved in the process, and the complexity of the changes.

website relaunch seo graphic from Green Flag Digital

Website Relaunch SEO Checklist

What part does an SEO consultant play in a website redesign project? The main responsibility is to minimize organic traffic loss after a redesign. These are just some of the factors that will influence the project:

  • Are you changing domain names?
  • Are you changing platforms?
  • Are all of your URLs changing?
  • Is your design changing in a drastic way?
  • Are you adding or removing more than 10% of your website’s content?
  • Are you making your website drastically more user friendly?
  • Does your new platform make optimizing each page easier?
  • What is your primary goal: more traffic? sales? leads? publicity? easier updates?
  • What resources do you have on your team as far as personnel and contractors?
  • Are you changing ecommerce platforms? Adding a new platform?
  • Do you have a new marketing strategy?
  • Do you expect a new load of traffic?
  • Are you creating a new advertising campaign?

There are so many steps like this you need to address. You need to plan and be organized like the most organized person know.

Want to download this website redesign SEO checklist in a PDF? Enter your email below:

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(I’ve personally used the above website redesign SEO checklist for huge websites generating millions a month.)

There are so many variables in a situation like this, that it’s difficult to put out a blanket list of possibilities.

If you’d like to discuss your project for a free 45-minute consultation, please get in touch. For website migrations, there are many variables, but the projects work out to about $100 per page for a full migration management. If you have 100 pages on your website, and you earn more than $10,000 a month in profit from your website, this project will pay for itself in a month.

If you were to lose 30% of your profit from a failed migration and it took six months to recover, you would lose $20,000 in revenue over that period. Scale up the value to yourself if you earn more revenue per page than this scenario.

Website Relaunch SEO Pricing

This is a rough estimate, as there are approximately 100 factors that will decide on the final pricing.

Side note, many consultants and agencies don’t like to give a number before an initial discussion for this reason, but I like a little upfront transparency.

For a medium-sized website that has been around a few years and has somewhere between 100 and 500 pages, the range of pricing for an SEO relaunch generally ranges from $5,000 to $20,000 for the SEO guidance and services.

migration checklist

The final pricing will largely depend on these factors and more, which are worth repeating:

  • Are you changing domain names?
  • Are you changing platforms?
  • Are all of your URLs changing?
  • Is your design changing in a drastic way?
  • Are you adding or removing more than 10% of your website’s content?
  • Are you making your website drastically more user friendly?
  • Does your new platform make optimizing each page easier?
  • What is your primary goal: more traffic? sales? leads? publicity? easier updates?
  • What resources do you have on your team as far as personnel and contractors?
  • Are you changing ecommerce platforms? Adding a new platform?
  • Do you have a new marketing strategy?
  • Do you expect a new load of traffic?
  • Are you creating a new advertising campaign?

 

Why is the Green Flag Digital Pricing so Expensive? Why is it so Cheap?

Expensive to one person is cheap to another.

The above pricing may seem expensive if your website is currently not generating revenue, traffic, or driving any leads to your site.

It may seem expensive if the pricing guidance above is a multiple of the value your website brings in every month, or a multiple of your business’s offline revenue.

To both of these I say that the project is still very important to do correctly, but it may be worth it to you to either focus on growing your revenue before purchasing this service, setting aside hundreds of hours to your internal staff to train them up on the skillset to manage this, or take it on yourself.

It may seem cheap if you’ve been quoted 10x that by another agency.

It may seem cheap if there’s so much on the line – millions of dollars in revenue – that this represents a mere fraction of the importance of your relaunch.

Steps to Starting a Website Relaunch SEO Project

If you’d like to work together, I’d be delighted to set up an intro call.

Please fill out the simple form on this page and we’ll set up a 30-minute intro call to see if we’re a good fit.

 

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