Redesign of existing site... any good do's and don't's?

[rjjj111]

I am planning a total redesign of my site Audio Bible on CD, Cassette Tape, MP3 and CD-ROM , it has been around about 8 years and has great search engine listing for many keywords. ( audio Bible, Bible on CD, etc.....). I am wanting to make the left hand navigation much longer and broken up into sub section menus. Smaller menu sections. At the top I will be redesigning the header section, logo, shopping cart graphic, Hacker safe logo, phone number, etc.... (front page and category pages) and the footer on each page will be changed also to include several more links related to customer help and answering questions.

I am planning to use all the existing page names I now have, and add several more. The page names I now have indexed by Google, I will be changing the look of these also, they were category pages with product descriptions but now I am going to just have these category pages list the category items and add individual product pages to list the particular product details. So I will be adding many pages also.

I will also be adding on the front page a " Top Searches section" which will also add several more pages to the site, like: Mike Kellogg narrates the Bible, iPod Bible, The Bible on CD, etc....

Any suggestions on how best to do this WITHOUT messing up my established site?

Any good do's and don't's?

Thanks..........

[cyberkid]

Also consider creating an Amazon.com site. Amazon has plans to use product data you input to create a stand alone website from. Webstore by Amazon > Amazon Web Services @ Amazon.com: WebStore by Amazon - Make Money home page: Instant Website Selected Sites & More

[incrediblehelp]

If your page names are staying the same you should be OK. Why not put up a few examples of the new design for all of us to review?

[rjjj111]

That is a great idea. I will put a link up when I get my web guy working on it. I was just wondering if anyone had some ideas before i get way into the redesign. i thought it would be easier to build it right the first time instead of redesigning a redesign.

I also figured with all the knowledge on this site, several people had done a redesign before and knew what worked best and what to look out for...........

[dann]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

If your page names are staying the same you should be OK. Why not put up a few examples of the new design for all of us to review?

I think you mean folders/URLs. Changing any or all of these will become a huge PITA getting back your serps and indexing by all the search engines. Gbot especially has a hard time forgetting about pages that were once indexed.
Good Luck! Dan

[incrediblehelp]

Yup I mean URLs/page names/ folders/etc...