Advice re Search Engine Optimization

croydonaddick

Some advice please from all you techies, I know there are a few of you.
I currently have a website hosted by a company called webhealer. Its a template based thing
so you do all the input on a basic template. To be fair I have a very basic website but it performs well in the search engines coming up on page one of google, the company use a system called searchmax.
However I have had a new website done through a friend which is a million times better to look at, with graphics, photos and video. I want this to go onto the original domain name, but the existing host company says my website will fall way down the rankings, whereas my friend says the domain does well due to the length of time its been around and will only go further up the rankings with his analysis/optimization. I really like the new website and want it seen, but cannot afford to slip in the search rankings as it will cost business.
Any advice before I take the plunge or chickem out?
Thanks in advance

SE10Addick

You can alert Google et all that you're updating the site and they will 'carry over' the historic weight of the website.

Your web builder should be able to advise you how to do that. Or do it for you.

SEO is all about relevant content. Search engines tend to not like templates too much so you should be better off IF handled well.

balham red

Hi, the chances are you will have a short term hit to your rankings. To minimise the effect of changing the site you would need to have the same site mapping in terms of page names etc. Your friend is partly right in that your domain history will count for something, but if the 'google bots' crawl your new site and find new page names then they will dock you ranking and you will have to build it back up.
Building it back up depends on whether the site is optimized for SEO regarding the tags, content and links. But SEO has changed a lot in the past year, whereby great content that people engage with and link in to is highly rewarded by Google.

Make sure your new site does not have a long load time and isn't flash based. If you do change sites then you also need to be 100% sure that you have the correct redirects in place from your old page names if you do not use the same names, so you retain your link juice from your existing external links that go in to your site.

GOod luck!

croydonaddick

Thanks Balham - the old site doesnt have a site map,whereas the new one does. Does that bode well regarding your first point.
Thanks again

Stig

Google a bloke called Dave Chaffey and follow whatever advice he gives.

balham red

Sorry, I didn't mean the existence of a site map, I meant that the mapping structure - as in if your homepage is called site.com, then you're main pages accessible through that are site.com/info, site.com/buy - that the naming of these key pages remain the same.
It is a bit of a concern that your current site doesn't have a site map to be honest! I guess your current high ranking is more luck than judgement!

If you PM me your site and the staging server of your proposed site I can have a little look and make some recommendations if you want.

croydonaddick

Thanks Stig

PL54

don't use the people I have been using, they are feeble.

balham red

You may as well just steer completely clear of SEO agencies these days. Once you've done the basics to your site itself which takes half a day, the most important thing is generating regular fresh content which an SEO agency can't do for you. Google has killed off all the shady practices SEO agencies did. Dying industry.

PL54

balham red said:

You may as well just steer completely clear of SEO agencies these days. Once you've done the basics to your site itself which takes half a day, the most important thing is generating regular fresh content which an SEO agency can't do for you. Google has killed off all the shady practices SEO agencies did. Dying industry.

I write a suitable article or feature and then they destroy it by randomly throwing "key words" in and rendering the written piece stupid.