Re-Designing Website/SEO

[zoewin]

Sorry, wasn't sure what to call this thread and I hope this isn't too much of a jumble ...

My website, beautifulthings.co.uk, is nearly five years old (and looking a little dated I think). There is also some new functionality I require. Currently the site runs on actinic but my designer is talking about using oscommerce (if I go with her).

My main concern is our search engine rankings - currently we have good natural listings with a few phrases - will I lose these if we totally overhaul the site? Could I suggest other options to my designer?

Also, I've been approached by an SEO company and I really would like to get the site optimised - should I start this before we start the re-design, during, or once done?

Sorry for all the questions and thanks in advance.

[wood1e2]

hi, SEO is something you should think about on a regular basis, obviously on site SEO should be taken in consideration when designing the site.

As for switching to different off-the-shelf e-commerce solutions I couldn't comment on.

But yes changing your website can effect your rankings (although that is not a definite), so when changing anything look at some off-site seo, a press release perhaps.

PM me if you want some more help... :)

[creospace]

If your new site is done well then there's no reason why you should loose rankings and in fact you should gain some - as to whether that is possible with OSC I can't say and i'd say probably not. You would ned to ask the SEO company if they are ok working on OSC.

Re the SEO company I'd be very weary of co's that contact you promising the earth, generally speaking if it's too good to be true then it is. To answer your specific question then the SEO company should work on the new site not the old but they could start the research before though.

Maybe publish the potential SEO co on here and a few will let you know if anything alarming comes up and especially I woudl publish what they are promising or offering to do for you and at what price and you'll certianly be told if it's good or not.

Hope that was of some help but feel free to ask more questions.

Gary

[tommy]

Sorry, wasn't sure what to call this thread and I hope this isn't too much of a jumble ...

My website, beautifulthings.co.uk, is nearly five years old (and looking a little dated I think). There is also some new functionality I require. Currently the site runs on actinic but my designer is talking about using oscommerce (if I go with her).

My main concern is our search engine rankings - currently we have good natural listings with a few phrases - will I lose these if we totally overhaul the site? Could I suggest other options to my designer?

Also, I've been approached by an SEO company and I really would like to get the site optimised - should I start this before we start the re-design, during, or once done?

Sorry for all the questions and thanks in advance.

Me personally I wouldn't go with an SEO company that has approached me (I have before and ended costing me a fortune for nothing), I would generally do research into companies who have a good reputation in SEO and see what their results have produced for other sites.

Members like RedEvo and Tin have had rave reviews from other members on the forums with regards to SEO (sorry there maybe others but these are first to come to my head).

Whats currently wrong with actinic?

[Astaroth]

As long as the new site is set up correctly there is no reason why it will automatically have negative impacts on your SEO.

SEO companies are very hard to judge to be honest, you need to make sure you know exactly what you are getting for your money and what is in the contract -v- the hollow promises they may make in their spin

[allsquare]

I'd ask the same question here; community.actinic .com
Can't see why you'd need to to change from using Actinic unless the functionality holds you back.

[Tin]

will I lose these if we totally overhaul the site? Could I suggest other options to my designer?
This depends on what is underpinning your current rankings. If it's inbound links then as long as you retain the same url's then they shouldn't be affected. If you need to change the url's in the new site then make sure you arrange a permanent 301 redirect to cover this. If it's on-page seo (I'm guessing it's not) then this needs to be 'ported across into the re-design.

Also, I've been approached by an SEO company and I really would like to get the site optimised - should I start this before we start the re-design, during, or once done?
I'd check that the seo company are comfortable seo'ing into OSC, despite a range of seo friendly plug-ins a lot aren't as it's less than perfect. The last time I looked into 'off the shelf' ecommerce solutions Actinic was the better of the two but things may have changed since then. Have a look around the SEO & PPC forum for more info in this regard (sorry, got to dash out now otherwise I'd have added some links here for you).

Last point, if your new seo company are going to focus on content seo then you'll need to let them onboard right the way through the redesign process and allow them their say in matters relating to their specialised aspect of the project, if their work is off-site then you can call them in even after the site has gone 'live' but no harm in getting them onboard early too.

Hope that helps

Ray

[zoewin]

Thanks everyone for your advice.

The company that have approached me are FirstFound and they have a one-off set up fee, plus a monthly charge. I'm not massively knowledgeable about SEO but it sounds like a lot of what they're offering is regarding links. Need to talk to them in more detail - if anyone knows anything (good or bad) about them, please do let me know.

I want to move away from actinic because of the functionality, plus I don't like the fact that the site is based on one computer, rather than me being able to log in from anywhere.

Can someone please clarify, I'm guessing on-site seo means content, keywords, headings etc and off-site is about links?

I'm off to the SEO forum to try and learn some more, but will definitely be thinking more about whether OS is the way to go, sounds like maybe not ...

Thanks again.

[wood1e2]

yes onsite is content etc...offsite is about links driving traffic your way... I would not look at someone wanting money up front.

Who ever you choose, make sure they fully explain what it is they will provide...keyword analysis, back link analysis and amongst other things competitor analysis, as you only have to be one better than a/your competitor(s).

[DreamLifestyle]

Changing your site normally effects a website, but then after time will re-adjust itself in the rankings accordingly.

[acu-it]

remember by changing the website to another package alot of the links that google currently spiders wont be there any longer as new package will more than likely have a different page naming convention, so visitors (and google in the short term) wont be happy with seeing alot of page 404 errors, and current search engines will be less than pleased ranking wise with what they will class as duplicate content for alot of the unchanged content pages when they crawl after the update if pages have new naming strategy.

[redcall safety]

I was recently quoted £1500 for a twelve month contract to alter my SEO and increase my Google ranking to page 1. I declined, took some advice on how to optimise my site and gained a page 3 ranking on a great keyword without putting in much effort.

I think I will save my money and put in more effort - maybe I'll gain page 1 myself??

[sabian1982]

Needless to say you've had some already useful replies from some of the forum regulars :)

Personally i wouldn't worry about doing seo if your going to be doing a redesign shortly. Ideally you designer/developer should be able to talk through at least some of the onsite issues that should be addressed. That being said oscommerce isn't your only solution; there a number of other shopping carts that are search engine friendly!

Once you've got something up and running you could then look at getting an seo company or consultant to provide some minimal onsite improvements, whilst working on the offsite elements. If you were able to get some google adwords (ppc) going as well, this would work hand in hand with your seo and help you develop a strong, quality seo campaign.

[RedEvo]

I know it's not everyone's idea of a good solution but a search engine friendly CMS - such as Joomla/Drupal/Plone etc - and an external cart such as Roman Cart is a killer combo. You can craft every page SEO wise. Very sweet but a little more work than your OSC type solution.

d

[sirearl]

I was recently quoted £1500 for a twelve month contract to alter my SEO and increase my Google ranking to page 1. I declined, took some advice on how to optimise my site and gained a page 3 ranking on a great keyword without putting in much effort.

I think I will save my money and put in more effort - maybe I'll gain page 1 myself??

But page 3 will not earn you money

page one ranking traffic no one goes to page 3.

Ranking Position Traffic Level #1 Ranking Position 1#2 3.5 times less than #1#3 4.9 times less than #1#4 6.9 times less than #1#5 8.5 times less than #1#6 10.4 times less than #1#7 12.3 times less than #1#8 14 times less than #1#9 14.8 times less than #1 (the worst place to rank on page 1)#10 14.1 times less than #1

Earl

[alex4orne]

page one ranking traffic no one goes to page 3.

Sorry I do, unless I am after a specif site I very rarely use any one from the first page.
But then I am just ackward I suppose

[sirearl]

page one ranking traffic no one goes to page 3.

Sorry I do, unless I am after a specif site I very rarely use any one from the first page.
But then I am just ackward I suppose

Where you made to sit at the back of the class on your own,?:D

Earl

[alex4orne]

Yes How did you guess and I had one of those nice jackets that does up at the back

[sirearl]

Thanks everyone for your advice.

The company that have approached me are FirstFound and they have a one-off set up fee, plus a monthly charge. I'm not massively knowledgeable about SEO but it sounds like a lot of what they're offering is regarding links. Need to talk to them in more detail - if anyone knows anything (good or bad) about them, please do let me know.

.

This statement from there site always gets my alarm bells ringing.


Search Engine Submission
firstfound will then submit your site, together with all the required information to at least the top 50 search engines and monitor your positions with each of those search engines.

firstfound will regularly resubmit your site together with the required information to obtain higher and more listings.
As very little can be achieved by simply submitting your site once we offer our Search Engine Submission services on a twelve month contract. This is paramount to fraud.

Always ask to see actual results a company has ontained acroos a wide variety of roducts an d industries and for high competition terms.

Earl

[Comspec]

I just love the info these companies try to pass off to unsuspecting new businesses - pure out and out lies.

Well spotted Earl, and a warning for others.

[findfair]

The Best way to get traffic is to learn other similar website like ebay myeglobal

[gibby]

there is a program IBP which has a free version

it has guide which really tells you what to do and the free version gives you the info you need
it made a big difference to our page rankings & taught me that alot of the advice people gave me about SEO was rubbish

hope that helps


G