Okay, after my last post (http://is.gd/eFCuu) I realized that I was touching on a subject that cannot be satisfied by a condensed collection of strategies and information related to transitioning from an old website to a new website. Considering how important a new website is to most companies, I’ve decided to post a few follow-up notes on the requirements for a seamless transition from an old and possibly well performing website, to a new, more user-friendly design built for ease of use and improved conversions. All the while preserving the accumulated reputation which can be affected by pagerank, pigeonrank, backlinks, fingerpointing, searchtraffic, slander and pirates.
You’ve probably heard about a site launch traffic tragedy from a colleague or business acquaintance. You may have even experienced it firsthand! You spend several months and 10′s of thousands of dollars on an amazing new website chock full of the latest social media widgets, mobile technology features and a huge release party. With a feeling of victory you ‘Flip the Switch’ only to see the website traffic virtually all but disappear. Online sales leads quickly dry up and soon your boss is breathing down your neck asking about the ROI promises you made in the last budget meeting.
Now in all honesty, the TLD (top-level domain-www.domain.com) will likely retain its traffic unless the content and code layout has changed substantially. So websites which have no value past their homepage will have no worries for the short-term.
Build an Inventory of Value Pages
For this first step I will attempt to describe how to use various analytics programs and free tools to build an inventory of the website. This is to develop a list of pages which Google has deemed to be of good value and which also have attracted back links from various other websites from around the internet.
Which Pages are Receiving General Internet Traffic - First, develop a complete list of all pages which are currently receiving web traffic (both search engine and direct). For this the bare minimum is going to be Google Analytics. Your standard log-based web stats will also work here but as we move into more detailed search engine traffic based priority lists, they become fairly useless. And make sure that you have at least 2 complete calendar weeks of data in order to gauge a more accurate meaningful average. Go back as far as you can to be honest (no more than 12 months), this is to factor in seasonal shifts in site traffic depending on the market. Export your list in to an excel sheet and get ready for the next list.
Which Pages are Receiving Search Engine Traffic - If your internal linking is clean and crawlable, this list will be as close as you’ll get to the most valuable pages in your website, unless you don’t drive leads or interest from the Search Engines… give your head a shake if this is you 
. During my career the one tool which has given me the most concise list of Search Engine traffic data is Eightfold Logic, formerly known as Enquisite. Eightfold Logic will export a complete list of entirely search based trafficked pages. Google Analytics will also give you this simple data so export ‘Search Engine Referrals (landing pages) Only” and move on. Add this to the excel page and prep for the next layer.
Which Pages are Being Linked to Externally (Back Links) – Perhaps the most important metric at the moment is Back Links (so long as you have ‘linkable content’). These are reputable websites, preferably within your industry which have linked to you from their website or blog. These are infinitely valuable for SEO and authority development. Okay, how do you gather a list of backlinks? Easy. Set up a Google Webmaster Tools account and authenticate your site. Once you’re in Google the diagnostic gates will open up for you to export. Navigate to Your Site on the Web => Links to your Site and extract the entire list of pages that it shows you here. Don’t worry about the numbers of links, you will want to preserve this entire list.
For another tool for collecting backlinks check out Link Diagnosis. This is a great site and I use it often in conjunction with Eightfold Logic and Google Webmaster Tools for compiling my list. Google Analytics is a fallback that I will use when I can’t update the site with a couple of weeks of Eightfold Logic data.
Part III… Coming Soon!
In Part III, I’ll go into detail on what to do with all this data. This is the real key to understanding what your website is providing to you. Getting suffocated with statistical information is all good if you know how to read the data and how to use the data to develop a plan from which to apply to the website for increased traffic, leads and conversions.
Rebuilding Your Website? Know the Risks and Be Prepared – Part II
You’ve probably heard about a site launch traffic tragedy from a colleague or business acquaintance. You may have even experienced it firsthand! You spend several months and 10′s of thousands of dollars on an amazing new website chock full of the latest social media widgets, mobile technology features and a huge release party. With a feeling of victory you ‘Flip the Switch’ only to see the website traffic virtually all but disappear. Online sales leads quickly dry up and soon your boss is breathing down your neck asking about the ROI promises you made in the last budget meeting.
Now in all honesty, the TLD (top-level domain-www.domain.com) will likely retain its traffic unless the content and code layout has changed substantially. So websites which have no value past their homepage will have no worries for the short-term.
Build an Inventory of Value Pages
For this first step I will attempt to describe how to use various analytics programs and free tools to build an inventory of the website. This is to develop a list of pages which Google has deemed to be of good value and which also have attracted back links from various other websites from around the internet.
Which Pages are Receiving General Internet Traffic - First, develop a complete list of all pages which are currently receiving web traffic (both search engine and direct). For this the bare minimum is going to be Google Analytics. Your standard log-based web stats will also work here but as we move into more detailed search engine traffic based priority lists, they become fairly useless. And make sure that you have at least 2 complete calendar weeks of data in order to gauge a more accurate meaningful average. Go back as far as you can to be honest (no more than 12 months), this is to factor in seasonal shifts in site traffic depending on the market. Export your list in to an excel sheet and get ready for the next list.
Which Pages are Receiving Search Engine Traffic - If your internal linking is clean and crawlable, this list will be as close as you’ll get to the most valuable pages in your website, unless you don’t drive leads or interest from the Search Engines… give your head a shake if this is you
. During my career the one tool which has given me the most concise list of Search Engine traffic data is Eightfold Logic, formerly known as Enquisite. Eightfold Logic will export a complete list of entirely search based trafficked pages. Google Analytics will also give you this simple data so export ‘Search Engine Referrals (landing pages) Only” and move on. Add this to the excel page and prep for the next layer.
Which Pages are Being Linked to Externally (Back Links) – Perhaps the most important metric at the moment is Back Links (so long as you have ‘linkable content’). These are reputable websites, preferably within your industry which have linked to you from their website or blog. These are infinitely valuable for SEO and authority development. Okay, how do you gather a list of backlinks? Easy. Set up a Google Webmaster Tools account and authenticate your site. Once you’re in Google the diagnostic gates will open up for you to export. Navigate to Your Site on the Web => Links to your Site and extract the entire list of pages that it shows you here. Don’t worry about the numbers of links, you will want to preserve this entire list.
For another tool for collecting backlinks check out Link Diagnosis. This is a great site and I use it often in conjunction with Eightfold Logic and Google Webmaster Tools for compiling my list. Google Analytics is a fallback that I will use when I can’t update the site with a couple of weeks of Eightfold Logic data.
Part III… Coming Soon!
In Part III, I’ll go into detail on what to do with all this data. This is the real key to understanding what your website is providing to you. Getting suffocated with statistical information is all good if you know how to read the data and how to use the data to develop a plan from which to apply to the website for increased traffic, leads and conversions.