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Site redesign and SEO question....

  • 06-06-2010 12:23pm
    #1
    Scotty #
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,782 ✭✭✭


    OK so a bit of background...

    A friend of mine is a sales agent on a part time basis for a large UK company kind of like Avon etc.

    A couple of years ago she had a e-commerce site made which is now ranked no1 on Google for this particular product. In fact the official site doesn't even show on Google.ie any more. Her site is extremely busy and last month did €27,000 in sales. Not bad for something that started out as 'extra pocket money'.

    The problem is the site is crap! It was made with shop-script. It's so bad that she has a custom field added to the registration page for people to enter their laser number :eek: which she then manually processes at home. Security is almost non existent and the records of about 15,000 customers are just sitting there waiting to be stolen.

    My question is though, if I upgrade the site to a more modern secure system (I'm planning Magento), how likely is this to negatively effect SEO. AFAIK there has never been any active SEO carried out on the site and it's mostly due to the domain and title that has got her to the top.

    She has only a handful of rivals for her main keyword but to lose the top spot or god forbid, the front page, would be detrimental for business.

    So, any advice/tips for a total site upgrade but keeping Google No1?


Comments

  • #2
    zAbbo
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,987 ✭✭✭✭zAbbo


    If she's generating 27k in sales per month and it's something which is important to her, I'd get someone who understands more than basic onsite SEO to assist.

    There are many nuances that are needed that generally only someone with a decent level knowledge of SEO would have experience with (auditing, backlinks, redirects, page mapping etc.)

    From your post, I'm assuming you've only experienced onsite SEO?


  • #3
    Scotty #
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,782 ✭✭✭Scotty #


    I have some experience with all aspects if SEO but I'm by no means an expert, no.

    Just to clarify though... I'm not referring to ongoing SEO. I'm specifically referring to Google crawling the site for the very first time after the change and seeing a completely different site (regardless of SEO quality).

    Btw, as it is now, she has only 4 instances of her main key phrase within the content (inc. title and meta tags) and google has not listed ANY backlinks. So SEO can only improve.

    As I've only ever 'tweaked' sites to improve SEO, I'm just worried that a complete overhaul to a site that's already No1 might have adverse effects, though probably temporary. There seem to be a lot of horror stories out there.


  • #4
    declanon
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16 ✭declanon


    Hi Scotty #, I would start of by taking a site content inventory, this would include all Pages and Products. I would also take note of all content on these pages - "product descriptions" and "meta content" (keywords / descriptions).

    When building out the site, make sure to add the page and meta content exactly how it was on the old site to the new site.

    Once you create all the products / pages in Magento - take note of all the new page / product URL's. If they are exactly the same as the old ones - fine, if not you will have the create a .htaccess file and re-direct the old page URL's to the new Page URL's.

    When you launch the new site, Google will see the same content and URL's so she should be fine to keep her #1 spot on the SERP.

    Depending on the amount of products and product variables / options, Magento might be overkill - and a WordPress install with the Shopp e-commerce might suffice.

    I also agree with zAbbo, if your client is generating 27k per month, she doesn't want to lose that #1 spot and she should hire a professional SEO company such as www.redflymarketing.com to over see everything.


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