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He wants to get more new clients via online marketing of his website... ie. bring in more traffic to his site, which hopefully converts to more new clients. My options are open in terms of SEM and SEO, but my background is stronger in PPC than in SEO.
Anyways, my initial assessment of his site, is that it needs some redesign to focus his landing pages specifically targeting various types of clients, in terms of the services he offers - cosmetic dental work, implants, amalgam replacements, general preventative, etc.
My concern is that in the process of reworking his site to optimize his landing pages for SEM that SEO not be negatively impacted; it makes sense to me that there's significant overlap in terms of optimizing for SEM and SEO. For some keywords his site is already on page 2 of G, Y, and M. So at the very least I'd like to keep him there, while improving his ranking for other keywords.
In terms of redesign, the focus will be on about 4 or 5 landing pages, rearranging/rewriting his content about 70%, replacing an iframe - currently his top and right side don't move - just the center part scrolls.
I also want to beef up his content relating to holistic dentistry and find some good quality inbound links for him in the process from other non-competing holistic services... what would be the best way to approach this?
Am I on the right track, and what other suggestions/warnings would you offer to minimize any potential deletrious SEO impacts to his site.
Sorry if I'm throwing too much at you at once - many thanks in advance.
1. Add content, rather than change content
2. Work in phases, to give the SEs chance to assimilate your changes
3. Be sure the site navigation works well, and keeps up with your changes (xenu is your friend).
This is on the basis that the SEs 'like' the site, and that you are not in a tearing hurry.
If you add the new stuff over a period, updating the navigation as you go, then the new stuff will quickly get (invisible) page rank, and be part of the site. Too much too soon, and there's risk that the SEs will panic and treat it as a new site (sandbox-ish effects).
Unless it's really bad, I'd not remove the old stuff - just ensure it has good navigation to the rest of the site, and is accessed from section indexes, rather than prominently from the front page. With content, every bit helps - even if it's in a section called archive (which I hate, but some favour!)
[added:] but ditch the iframe, if you can - server side includes can do a similar job, and are much better from an seo angle
[edited by: Quadrille at 12:11 pm (utc) on Feb. 15, 2008]
each page of the current site uses an iframe for the content... would it be better, in terms of phasing in, to modify content first and then later replace the iframe, or to replace the iframe first with the old content?
How fast to phase in? I was thinking 1 page at a time, and then monitor the impact after the next Google spider crawl. If it picks up the change and all is ok, go on to the next page...
How important is the sitemap in this scenario? There is currently no sitemap; should I start with a sitemap of the current structure and then update it as I go along 1 page at a time? Is there a sitemap generating tool you could recommend?
My solution has been to create a new directory just for ppc landing pages. Block the directory in robots.txt, and mark each page 'no-index' just to be sure. Now you can feel free to mess with the pages at your own pace, without affecting your rankings.
Does anyone see any downside to this approach?
My concern is that in the process of reworking his site to optimize his landing pages for SEM that SEO not be negatively impacted
<added>arieng's a bit quicker on the trigger</added>
