How the website relaunch works without losing rankings

Is your website outdated and no longer appealing to you? Do you have the feeling that you need a change to grow your business? Then a website relaunch is exactly what you need. In this article, we would like to show you why a relaunch is worthwhile, what precautions you need to take and what else there is to consider. This way, you are guaranteed to relaunch your company website successfully! Do you need support with website creation? Then get in touch with us. We have years of expertise in e-commerce, web design and website creation.

Reading time 8 min

1. What is a relaunch anyway? Find out everything you need to know about a relaunch here
2. Why is a website relaunch worthwhile? We have five good reasons for you
   1. These include a new design
   2. responsiveness
   3. Replacing outdated technologies with state-of-the-art software and systems
   4. Simplifying the care and maintenance of your website
   5. and SEO optimization of the content of your website
3. Requirements and how a relaunch works
   1. Identifying the problems with the old website
   2. Tips for the relaunch
      1. Maintenance mode
      2. New structure
      3. On-page optimization
      4. Off-page optimization
4. Checklist for the relaunch
5. FAQ: Further questions and answers
   1. What does a relaunch cost?
   2. Website relaunch: What needs to be considered?
   3. How long does a website relaunch take?
   4. What is a call-to-action?

What is a relaunch?

First of all, it would of course be good to know what a relaunch actually is. The term comes from the English language and means "new start". In business terms, it usually refers to the relaunch of a product, a website or an online store. This is because "launch" means "start" and "re" stands for "new" or "again". It is therefore not about the complete re-creation of a product, but about a renewed, improved and modified launch. For example, the product has been on the market for some time and now needs to be adapted to new developments and circumstances. Once this has been done, the product is relaunched with all the additional functions and introduced to the market. However, a website can also be outdated, for example in terms of design or due to outdated information. Depending on how big the changes will be, a complete relaunch is worthwhile. Not only are one or two things adjusted, but the entire website may go into wait mode for a certain period of time in order to be able to make all the changes. You can find out why a relaunch is worthwhile and what you should bear in mind in the next few steps.

5 reasons for your website relaunch

Why should you relaunch your website? Sometimes it's simply time to breathe some fresh air into your company and its public image. Here are five good reasons that are guaranteed to convince you to relaunch your website if you're not yet sure whether it's really necessary.

A new design

Maybe your website is old-fashioned and doesn't meet the new standards of a modern website. Or maybe your website simply doesn't match your corporate identity. Whatever the problem, a new design can help you and your company to attract customers again. When redesigning the website, you can incorporate many aspects that you didn't consider when you first set up the company website , such as an intuitive user experience that ensures your customers get the information they are looking for.

Responsive website

Depending on how old your website is and how long it's been around, it may not be responsive to all devices. But this is essential these days! Many internet users are not on a computer, but rather use their cell phone or tablet to access websites. Your company website should therefore also be responsive. This means that it automatically adapts to the screen size of the device being used. This way, your website users have the best possible user experience with your website and can take in and recognize all the information and images. On a website that is not responsive, content may be completely displaced. This is unattractive for users and causes them to leave the website again.

New technology

Some websites are still based on old technologies such as Java or Flash. Other technological errors can also occur, which then affect the performance of your website. This is not only noticed by users, but also by Google, which is why you don't even appear in the search engine results. With your relaunch, you can iron out errors and finally update to the latest technology - for more visitors!

Easy maintenance and upkeep

Is your website structure confusing? Is content maintenance complicated and simply not intuitive? Then it's also time for a relaunch. After all, you don't want to spend your valuable time managing your website, you want to publish content quickly and remain accessible to your customers. With a new website, you can update and improve the structures behind the appearance in the browser. This makes work easier for you and your employees and ensures greater efficiency in website management.

The perfect SEO optimization

Is your website not appearing in the search results of search engines such as Google? Then a new website is definitely worth it! Most people who search for something on the Internet enter a search term (keyword) into a search engine. Google is usually used. For example, if they are looking for a service that you offer, it would be best for you and your company if your website is also suggested for this. But this is not so easy in practice. You need a clever SEO strategy to ensure that your website and its relevant subpages also appear in the first search results. If this is not yet the case for you, a website relaunch is the perfect opportunity to come up with a well thought-out SEO strategy and implement it straight away.

The requirements for relaunching your website: How does the relaunch work?

In order to update your website and publish a new version, you need to take a few precautions. You should also be aware that a relaunch cannot be accomplished immediately. Rather, it is a lengthy process that also depends on how much you want or need to change on your website. This in turn depends on the company website you already have. In this paragraph, we also answer the question "How does a website relaunch work?". Because which requirements are needed and how the relaunch is ultimately carried out blur together and become your big task.

Identify problems with your old website

The first step for a successful relaunch is to identify the problems with your old website. You can also take a look at our reasons for a website relaunch. Based on these points, you can quickly find out what your website is missing and what you should consider for your new website. We have written down a few points and questions to help you identify the problems with your company website so that you can finally tackle the website relaunch project:

• Does your website rank in the Google search engine for relevant keywords?
• Does your website have a clear structure that is easy for users to recognize so that they can find their way around and find the information they need straight away?
• Are you able to manage your website in the background? Can you easily add new content or change content?
• Does your website load quickly?
• Is the design of your website appealing? Are consistent colors used and does the website look modern?
• Does your website throw up errors?

If you answered "no" to some of the questions, or perhaps even just one of them, then these are the points you should add to your to-do list for your new website. In the next step, you will receive further important information that you should also consider if you want to redesign your website.

Important tips for your relaunch that you should know beforehand

We would now like to give you a few tips to help you prepare for the relaunch. Some things you can only use during the relaunch process, but it's worth having heard about them beforehand. After our tips, it's time to get down to business: the website relaunch can begin. Our website relaunch checklist is also helpful here.

Set maintenance mode or a temporary website

It makes no sense for you and your company to take your website completely offline. After all, in the best-case scenario, you will want to carry out your day-to-day business despite the website relaunch and want to remain accessible to all potential customers. For this reason, you should either leave your old website online (you can also indicate on the homepage that the website is currently under construction) or create a page with only the most important information and your contact details. You should also indicate here that all content is temporarily unavailable because your new website is currently under construction. These are your options if work on your new website is ongoing in the background. However, if you want to set up your new website right now, you should also set a maintenance mode that informs your users that the correct website will be available in a few moments.

Turn the old structure into a new and better one

As a rule, you do not take over the old structure of your website for the new website. For one thing, this is difficult to do, and for another, you probably had a worse structure before, or perhaps none at all. If you want to change the structure of your website and its subpages, you should first create a plan. What does the structure currently look like and how do you need to change it to make it better for you and your users? Draw the new structure on a piece of paper to get a good overview. This will make it much easier for you to determine whether the new structure makes sense.

However, if you want to keep your subpage as it is and only make minor changes, then you should install 301 redirects for the relevant subpages. So that you don't lose track of which subpages need a redirect and what they should look like, you should add a redirect plan to your structural planning. You can do this by downloading the XML sitemap in an Excel file, for example. In the file, simply place the new URL after the existing URLs. If you give the redirects the status code 301, this permanent redirect will also be recognizable for Google. If you still have questions about how exactly this can be implemented, we are of course here to help. Just get in touch with us.

Carry out on-page optimizations to improve your website

As part of the relaunch, optimize your website in terms of search engine findability. Because once you're there, this point will definitely pay off. Perhaps SEO optimization was the decisive factor in the revision of your company website. Regardless of the reason for the relaunch, optimizing your website with regard to important SEO aspects is a must for us that you should not skip.

However, there is one problem: you may lose existing rankings when you relaunch your website. If your website doesn't have any well-ranked keywords yet, then this issue is not a problem for you. If you already have a few good rankings, you are of course also taking a certain risk. But here too, there are tips and tricks on how you can reduce the risk and retain rankings - but more on this in our blog post. The most important on-page optimizations include checking whether all web pages have a meta description and a meta title and whether these make sense, whether there are good and appropriate subheadings and whether all images also have alt tags. You should also check that all relevant keywords are included for your important pages that are to be found in Google and that there is a call to action (CTA) that brings you closer to your goals.

Off-page optimizations for more search engine relevance

You should also look into off-page optimization once you are in the process of improving your website. You can check whether your old backlinks are still working, are properly tagged (do/no-follow), open in a new tab and so on.

Website relaunch checklist for a successful set-up

Now we would like to give you a short checklist that can help you redesign your website and bring it live. Combined with the questions you should ask yourself at the beginning of the article, the checklist will provide you with suitable tools for the relaunch. We have already explained a few points above and have briefly listed them again here for the sake of completeness.

1. answer the questions

First, you should answer the questions at the beginning of the article to prepare.

2. analyze your competition

Your competitors can give you inspiration. Take a look at their websites and find out what you like there and what particularly appeals to you. You could also plan this for your website in a modified form. But don't copy it, of course!

3. the goals of your relaunch

What do you want to achieve with the website relaunch? You may have already found this out to some extent when answering the questions. But now you should also look at why you want the changes. Is the goal to reach more customers? Then you should put a lot of work into search engine optimization. If you clearly define your goals, it will be much easier for you to find out which aspects of the relaunch have top priority for you.

4. build a good structure

Is the old structure chaotic? Then invest planning time in a new, clearer structure.

5. the target group

Who are you addressing with your company website? Define a clear target group in order to tailor the new design and the entire new website to the target group. What does the target group find appealing and what doesn't suit them at all? This will make the new homepage and the associated subpages a complete success.

6. user-friendliness

Closely linked to this is user-friendliness. Can the target group find their way around and do they have a pleasant experience when visiting your website? Align the design based on usability aspects. This also includes the responsiveness of your website.

7. content planning

Is the website content already complete and does it cover all the important details of your business? Or is some important content still missing? Check and revise the content of your site when you start the relaunch.

8 Technical details

Is your website up to date and can your new concept even be implemented technically? Make sure that the planned website also works technically. Perhaps you can get an expert to help you with the technical details if you don't know what to do yourself. Your website should always be dynamic and accessible at all times.

9 SEO

SEO optimization is an important aspect of your newly planned website. That's why you shouldn't cut corners here and come up with a good SEO concept. Research suitable keywords for your industry and make sure you have the right content on your site. You can find more important SEO aspects at the top of this article.

Our conclusion

Sometimes a website relaunch is essential to kick-start the growth of your business and get you one step closer to your goals. Even if it is a time-consuming and sometimes cost-intensive process, it will always be worth it. However, the prerequisite is that you prepare yourself accordingly and tackle the project with a certain amount of seriousness. After all, a professional Internet presence is a must these days if you want to stand out from the competition. Of course, you should first check whether your website needs a redesign. We have explained how to do this in our article. If your conclusion is: "Yes!", then this should now be your top priority. If you need support with the entire website relaunch, we are at your disposal as experts. Simply contact us for an initial consultation and we will find the right website solution for you.