iProspect's managing director explains why incorporating traffic-driving elements into a site re-design is a critical step you can't afford to miss.

You just got the news you've been waiting for. Green light on the re-design of the company's website. Now you'll finally be able to build a site that's on par with your competitors'. No longer will you be ashamed to show clients your ho-hum site. Immediately, the wheels begin to turn -- faster and faster -- thinking of everything you want to incorporate into the site. Things like Flash animation, better product information, customer reviews, related product information, and a personalized user experience. You realize you'll need input from your creative and usability teams, but in the end… the new site will be awesome.  And customers will be blown away…

Um… Timeout… Earth to site designer, come in please.

Listen, those ideas are great, but you forgot one thing. One big thing. If your customers can't find your site, all those new bells and whistles will be for naught. Moreover, if they can't find it, they won't be conducting any transactions on it either. 

Quite simply, when it comes to site re-design, pretty is nice, but it isn't enough. Incorporating elements into a site re-design that will help you drive traffic is a critical step you can't afford to miss. And, if you're thinking it's one way or the other -- a search friendly site OR a customer friendly site -- you're wrong. The two are not mutually exclusive. You can have your cake AND eat it too.

Most websites re-launch every two years, and all too often marketers and webmasters forget to plan for SEO in the process. Later on, when the site's performance tanks, and everyone scrambles to figure out the problem, the importance of search becomes evident. Once it's identified as an SEO issue, more scrambling ensues to try to fix things. However, this backwards approach doesn't really fix anything. Instead, it just creates a band-aid solution that in the end actually keeps the site from reaching its full traffic-generating potential. To do it right, you should capitalize on the window of opportunity that your re-launch presents, as it is a rare chance to make those labor intensive changes while your developers are already touching the site.

Now you might be wondering why the re-design time is such a good opportunity to address SEO.  Well to start, during the re-design process, people are usually more willing to step back and think about how they can make something better. It's a time of renewal. A re-birth of sorts. And while that sounds a little Zen-like, my experience with client after client has shown that this seemingly small step is a crucial element in the improvement process. This is the time where you can constructively look at ways to improve your search marketing performance. For example, this would be the time to make your URLs cleaner, improve internal linking, add new content, and restructure your source code.

I hate to keep beating what I hope is now a dead horse, but failing to consider SEO at all during the re-design process -- or waiting until the last minute to do so -- is the biggest mistake I see being made by marketers and webmasters.  But it's usually not alone. Other common mistakes include not taking down old web pages, and not properly re-directing users and search engine crawlers to your new content. The importance of migrating links that point to old or significantly changed pages to their new homes is paramount, and cannot be overstressed. This is a common error, and the negative impact can be quite severe.

Congratulations on getting approval to upgrade you company's website. Make sure to focus on delivering a unique and compelling experience for users. But remember, pretty is nice, but it isn't enough. Be sure to think about driving qualified traffic to the site through SEO early and often throughout your site re-design project.

Brian Kaminski is managing director for iProspect's San Francisco office, responsible for overseeing all client service and sales activities for the west coast, and for delivering superior strategies for iProspect's clients.  Since joining iProspect in 2000, Kaminski has contributed significantly to the firm's growth, first in his role as Campaign Analyst and then in his role as Client Services Manager. More recently, as Client Services Director, Kaminski led the activities of the client-facing search teams as well as the strategic direction of each campaign, working with clients such as Circuit City, Cingular Wireless, Allegis Group and Sharp Electronics Corporation. Also responsible for new employee training and development, Kaminski monitors iProspect's overall search engine marketing process, ensuring that the company continues to innovate and achieve superior results. Kaminski is a contributor to iProspect's monthly newsletter, the Search Marketing Advisor, and has spoken at client conferences around the country as well as numerous industry events, including the Search Engine Strategies Conference. Kaminski earned his Bachelors Degree in Political Science from Colgate University.