Revamp website

I have a site that currenly sits @ no1 in Google/MSN/Yahoo however the site really needs a revamp as visually its a mess. It does however run at 10% CTR on adsense on 500 visits a day and does 3 or 4 sales a day on Amazon.

If I were to revamp it, whats the best way to ensure that I dont lose my position at the top. Or, taking into account the figures above, would you just leave it as is?

 

Personally I wouldnt.

When I first started I was expecting to see instant results to which I never, so I changed the website and months later I saw results for the design before I had changed it, then after a while it dropped off.

Sometimes your better off just leaving well alone and let it earn that little bit for you as sometimes a search engine might goto you page, pick up on keywords or key placements, you change all of that you might keep traffic for a while, but it might change.

If its a site that you havent bothered about but are starting to see sales etc from it, its becoming ripe.

You done the work so just reap the rewards, it could be there for years earning you money without you having to do anything more.

 

PM sent- thanks

 

Was trying to find this for ages.

If need be then keep the pages that are earning you the money and change the design around pages that are not earning you the money.

so if for example you have acorn.php keep that page and if need be have acorndomains.php

The page will be in the search engines for ages and possibly forever but you get to design a new site.

The domain name maybe the thing putting you at the top rather than the website but its best to keep the pages that have you there.

If need be do a new index page call it index.htm or index.html which by passes the index.php file but you still keep that orginal site so it keeps linking and keeps in the search engine, and then build a site from the index.html file

 

Agreed. If you have a good position, get good CTR *and* convert, then you need to be very careful in what you change.

If the change is to have new content and new functionality, then you could setup a new subdomain under the main domain (with a search engine friendly kw subdomain!) and build under there, leaving the original as it was in the same place.

Just be careful about duplicate content. As long as it is new and different, Googs shouldn't penalise you. If there is overlap of content, then it will.

It's a dangerous game... I also have several sites highly ranked which I am very wary of breaking, even though they could do with a complete overhaul.

 

Lovely, I will go with all your suggestions and leave it be.

Thanks

 

I would'nt recommend starting new pages as a completely seperate site, its quite possible that the site is ranking well because of its internal link structuire, any change could cause you problems.

If you decide to redesign the site, keep the same URLs (use a 301 redirect if you have to change any), keep the same content and keep an eye on keeping internal linking structure and any coding tweaks the same (ie. keywords currently in H1 tags etc)

 

Like mating porcupines.

Do everything very slowly and carefully and be ready to roll back on first sight of problems.

I dropped a position on a redesign from which I don't think I'll ever recover.

yesterday

 

Out of interest was it a straight redesign? Ie identical content and internal links etc?

Or was it a 'new' site?

Sorry i have'nt replied to your PM by the way, been really hectic!

 

This is a tricky one. I had a site that was top for some big adult terms for many years. The site was making really good money and I was frightened that any little change of design or content would risk it dropping right out of the search engines.

I left the site untouched for years, and the competition slowly caught up then went ahead of me. The conversion rates also got smaller over the years due to the competition steadily improving the look of their sites. It is a risk making changes but unless you want to die a slow death it's a must.

One thing in your favour is that on-page factors have much less impact on the search engines now compared to several years ago. If the site is in a competitive market, chances are that the site is where it is due largely to external factors.

I would do as Yesterday said and make changes slowly, try changing the design but keeping the content exactly the same, then if all goes well change the content several months later, making sure however that you don't change the overall theme.

 

no, I changed quite alot at one time including a bit of the internal link structure.

It was mainly a database redesign but we couldn't help rolling the whole thing out at once with a "what the hell" sort of attitude.

It could have many things - introduced css rather than tables, introduced iframes, introduced different message board software, removed some links to old crap content (but retained the content), added links back from that content. etc etc.

I thought I knew best but hey hey!

no probs about pm, thanks

yesterday

 

EEK!

Its likely these changes were the cause, many people underestimate the power of internal linking structure.

As Paul said with an established site with lots of external links the risk decreases, you still need to be careful though.

 

:-D :-D

... I knew you'd enjoy that!

that was the techie's idea for the ad serving.

yesterday

 

Well being honest I am loving one of my site changes at the moment but then I had nothing to lose possibly had traffic but wasnt make money.

I have self parked www.letsgetsexual.co.uk and a few more

and I've earnt £16.25 in the past four days when normally that would have been £0.00

Well infact I have earnt more than that in sex toy sales as well.

So if you have the traffic and sales then really is it worth the risk, and if you havent got the sales then you have nothing to lose.

Rock on self parking even though I never parked with Sedo but parking my own websites earns me more than a few pence on clicks thrus.

 

Moi?

I just found a script that uses the google feed and some rss stuff and mainly an experiment at the moment.

The domains have been around for years but havent made money for a while but its working

04/06/2007 16:44 PM Sex in the UK £ 12.50
04/06/2007 16:10 PM Sex in the UK £ 1.25
03/06/2007 17:23 PM Sex in the UK £ 1.25
02/06/2007 22:45 PM Sex in the UK £ 1.25
30/05/2007 13:06 PM Sex in the UK £ 1.25
30/05/2007 12:55 PM Sex in the UK £ 1.25
29/05/2007 17:27 PM Sex in the UK £ 1.25
28/05/2007 21:12 PM Sex in the UK £ 1.25

Thats not bad for just self parking and doing a tiny bit of work on the index file.

I've brought a few more since then based upon the same thing as they say, sex sales