How to Fix Huge Traffic Drops after a Website Redesign?

Redesigning your website can be an exciting change, but it also carries risks. One of the biggest fears for business owners is that a redesign could cause a massive drop in traffic to the site.

For many, those fears become a reality as visitors struggle to find what they’re used to in a new structure and layout.

94% of those surveyed stated that their mistrust of a website directly resulted from its design.

If this has happened to your site after a recent redesign, don’t panic; SEO service providers can help with traffic recovery.

In this article, we’ll examine common reasons for big drops in website traffic and share strategies for returning visitors to your new site.

SOURCE: Aceinfoway

Most Common Causes for Traffic Drops After a Redesign

Site Structure Changes

A website redesign that changes the structure that users are familiar with can cause traffic drops. Visitors get lost or confused when the organization they know changes. To prevent traffic losses, sites must make the new structure clear and logical, so visitors can easily know where to find things.

53% of mobile pages are abandoned if they load longer than 3 seconds. A mobile-friendly redesign improves SEO by ensuring a positive user experience on all devices.

Preserving some aspects of the previous structure can also help users adjust to changes more smoothly. The goal is to guide visitors through the transition without disorienting them. To achieve this, sites must maintain clear paths and ensure the new layout is easy to navigate. Otherwise, they risk losing visitors permanently due to confusing design changes.

Redirect Errors

A redirect error happens when the old page links from the previous website design no longer point to the correct matching pages on the new design.

• This often occurs after changing a site because all internal and external links must be updated for the new page URLs.
• Redirects are needed to smoothly guide users from the old pages to the matching new pages. However, if redirects are missing or not set up right for some pages, visitors will see “Page Not Found” mistakes.
• Over time, as links to the old page URLs stay on outside sites or in search results, more traffic will hit broken links, and traffic will go down.

It’s important to take the time to test all redirects and ensure that every old page URL has a “301 Moved Permanently” redirect. This helps prevent losing visitors when you change your site.

SOURCE; Screaming Frog

Site Copy

A website redesign is an opportunity to improve the user experience and optimize for better performance. However, it also risks unintended consequences, like a drop in traffic, if not implemented carefully. Here are some of the most common causes that could potentially reduce traffic after a redesign:

• Broken internal links: A redesign often involves structural changes that can break internal links, making it difficult for visitors to navigate within the site. Ensure all internal links are checked and fixed.
• Disrupted user flows: The new layout may disrupt key user paths and tasks like searching, browsing categories, or checking out. Test common user flows to identify any pain points.
• Missing important content: Valuable pages or sections may get overlooked during the move. All important content has been properly shifted to the new design.
• Poorly optimized metadata: Page titles, descriptions, and canonical URLs need attention to avoid confusion. Metadata for search and social sharing should be re-optimized.
• Incompatible with search engines: Search engines take time to recrawl and re-index a redesigned site. Ensure a proper redirect strategy and sitemaps are submitted for a smooth transition.
• According to 73.1% of web designers, the main cause of website users leaving is a non-responsive design.

It is key to foresee possible problems, test your assumptions, and closely monitor your analytics after launch. This helps you solve issues before they seriously affect your traffic. An incremental approach also helps to minimize risk.

How Long Does It Take to Recover from Traffic Loss?

The time it takes for a website to recover traffic after a redesign can vary a lot. Generally, most sites return to their original traffic levels within 3 to 6 months. But remember, this is just a general estimate because each website and its audience are different.

It all depends on how extensive the changes were. If redirects were set up correctly, how well did users adjust to the new design, and how much effort was put into marketing the new look?

Sites with extensive redesigns that completely change the user experience may take longer to recover fully. Redirects are also crucial for ensuring search engines can still find all of the site’s existing pages.

SOURCE: Uptocorp

How to Avoid Traffic Drops During a Redesign

Include SEO in the Process

When redoing your website, think about SEO (search engine optimization) the whole time.

Over 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine. SEO is crucial for attracting organic traffic.

Don’t wait until the end to consider SEO service companies; include it in each step.

• First, look at your current pages and where people find your site.
• Choose important pages for users and search engines. Outline, moving key things like headings, links, and keywords to the new site structure.
• Test the new layout and words with SEO tools to make sure search engines can understand them.
• Do keyword research to optimize page titles and descriptions. Copy internal and external links from your sitemap to keep backlinks and references.
• Check the new design before launch to ensure pages are indexed, load fast, and are clear for search engines.

Considering SEO as you redo your site can help reduce traffic drops.

Create a New Sitemap

Before you launch your new website design, updating your sitemap is crucial. This ensures that search engines can quickly find and index all your new pages. A well-organized sitemap helps search engines easily locate your most important pages right after you go live. This is key to preventing any drops in traffic that might happen if these pages aren’t immediately visible to search engines.

An updated sitemap is important because it goes live with your new site. This allows search engines to discover important pages immediately, helping keep your search traffic steady, just as it was with your old design.

• A sitemap is more than just a list of pages; it provides important information about your website’s structure and how the pages are connected. This helps search engines understand the hierarchy and relevance of your pages. Without this guidance, search engines might struggle to determine which pages are crucial and which are less important.
• Having your sitemap ready at launch also means that search engines will recognize any changes, including page names or URLs that come with the new design. This is important because it ensures that the pages you want to rank well are indexed correctly.
• Without an updated sitemap, search engines might overlook these changes and drop pages they can’t find.
• Additionally, a current sitemap helps avoid issues with duplicate content. Sometimes, search engines might index your new site while the old one is still being phased out. Your sitemap clarifies which version of each page is the main one, guiding search engines to ignore old or duplicate content.

This streamlined indexing process helps your site maintain its visibility and relevance.

SOURCE: Flowmapp

Create 301 Redirects

When changing website URLs, use 301 redirects to send visitors and search engines to the new pages. This helps traffic and rankings. To set them up, identify all pages with changing URLs and their new destinations. Then, use your server’s configuration files (e.g.,.htaccess for Apache) to enter redirect rules before launching the new design.

Test that the redirects work as expected by entering the old page URLs and verifying that you reach the corresponding new pages. Setting up comprehensive 301 redirects is a crucial task for any redesign project. It helps maintain traffic and search engine placement.

Review Previous Website 301 Redirects

Check that the redirect source and destination URLs match the page structure of the new site design. This provides an opportunity to fix any broken redirects before launch. In addition to Search Console, use browser developer tools to simulate old URL requests.  And don’t forget to test redirects with trailing slashes versus without. Those can sometimes break unexpectedly.

Having testers try common redirect scenarios to identify any issues is a good idea. You can resolve any issues before launch by thoroughly checking your redirects upfront. This ensures that users and search engines experience a seamless transition to the new site structure. This prevents traffic loss and helps the new site design perform better from day one. It’s a wise investment of time that can pay off significantly in post-launch SEO and user experience.

Crawl Your Existing Site and Plan Your New Site Architecture

Use a crawler tool to map out all of the pages on your site, including any pages that search engines have indexed that you may have forgotten about. This will help you determine what content should be prioritized for migration.

Once you have an exhaustive sitemap, analyze traffic and user behavior data to identify popular and important pages. SEO service providers can use this information to begin planning the new site architecture. Aim to group similar content together intuitively and logically to improve navigation. Ensure that important pages are easily discoverable.

Crawlability issues, such as broken links and incorrect redirects, account for 17.7% of all website SEO issues.

Consider internal linking strategies to optimize the discoverability of key pages. Test different information hierarchies to determine the best structure. Document all decisions to refer to throughout the redevelopment process to ensure a smooth transition.

SOURCE: Ecreativeworks

Make Sure Your Analytics Tracking Code is in Place

You mustn’t lose any analytics data during a website redesign. This can negatively impact your ability to track key metrics like traffic sources and conversions.

• Double-check that all pages have properly implemented your Google Analytics or other tracking code.
• To capture all user behavior, you’ll want to ensure the tracking snippet is located before the closing </head> tag.
• Also, confirm that the tracking code version has not been upgraded, which could cause issues.
• Consider temporarily tracking the old design pages to compare metrics with the new design.
• Run some test visits to your site and check in on Google Analytics to see if pages are being tracked as expected.

Resolving any issues with your tracking implementation before the redesign goes live will help. It maintains a continuous and complete view of your analytics data through the transition.

Read more: How to Use Google Analytics 4 for Paid Search

Final Thought

Recovering from a significant traffic drop after a website redesign takes time and diligent effort. Yet, it is certainly possible if the right strategies are implemented. Analyze your analytics data closely. You will understand what factors are driving users away,  and it will help you determine the most effective fixes. Ensuring key pages are optimized for search and usability should be a top priority. Re-engaging past visitors through email marketing and social media is important for winning back trust.

FAQs: