AFRAID to lose high ranking, but sight needs to be redone!!!

[Willingk1]

I have called all kinds of web design companies. My site is in a niche market nad has a number 1 to 3 ranking on yahoo and google. It is now in Frontpage and is flat and ugly. I want to have my site re-designed but do not want to lose my ranking. Is it possible. Some comanies say yes and some say no. HELP!!! Anyone with real experience on this please.

[Mel]

There is no need to lose rankings due to a site redesign, but it does have to be done carefully and correctly. I have recently done several redesigns as a part of search engine optimization and in every case the rankings improved substantially.

PM me your URL and I will take a look at it if you like.

[web-content-king]

Mel, reading on your site:

Our services include the following:

An initial discussion.
This enable us to gain a better understanding of your business

Analysis of your server set up and your site architecture

Analysis of your competitors.
This will help us to determine what level of effort will be needed to get top rankings and keep them.

Research and development of targeted keywords list.
This seemingly simple list may well be the most important part of your campaign, since if you do not target the correct keywords it is difficult to translate high rankings into customers.

Optimization of Web pages.

Submissions to Search Engines and Directories.

Monthly monitoring of results and adjustments.

*******

What about the incoming links?

[coder]

You can redesign your site yourself, without losing ranking. Keep your pages named the same if possible. If you can't keep them the same use permanent redirects. Obviously your hamepage is still going to be your home page, so that should carry over.

Good Luck

[larry12468]

Originally Posted by Phantom

You can redesign your site yourself, without losing ranking. Keep your pages named the same if possible. If you can't keep them the same use permanent redirects. Obviously your hamepage is still going to be your home page, so that should carry over.

Good Luck

Phantom, I am also having my site redesigned right now.

1. I gather from your comment that you are you saying that the name of the pages is probably the single most important item not to change?

2.Please take a look at my site home page at www.alltimeshare.com and notice the words in black which appear within the blue border at the top of the page. These words match words in the meta tags.
I want to keep those words in my new design but here is the dilemma:
My new page design is based upon a graphic at the top, so since putting words onto a graphic can't be seen by a search engine, and I don't really want them at the top of the body text either, would it be ok to put them at the top of the page but in the same color as the background? Yes I know the drill about webmasters who have abused that concept, but my thought is that one invisible sentence shouldn't be a big deal. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS OR SUGGESTIONS PLEASE?

Thanks a lot,

Larry

[Josh Huxley]

If you are just going to be changing the design of the site, then there should not be anything to worry about. Keep the keywords where they are, use <h1> tags, meta/title tags etc intact. Also, keep the structure of the site intact. If that is not wrong, do the 301 redirect. They way, you should still be able to retain the rankings.

[coder]

Originally Posted by larry12468

2.Please take a look at my site home page at www.alltimeshare.com and notice the words in black which appear within the blue border at the top of the page. These words match words in the meta tags.
I want to keep those words in my new design but here is the dilemma:
My new page design is based upon a graphic at the top, so since putting words onto a graphic can't be seen by a search engine, and I don't really want them at the top of the body text either, would it be ok to put them at the top of the page but in the same color as the background? Yes I know the drill about webmasters who have abused that concept, but my thought is that one invisible sentence shouldn't be a big deal. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS OR SUGGESTIONS PLEASE?

Larry,
DO NOT have hidden text at the top, nothing good will happen from it. You can use alt tags on graphics, or incorporate text on a graphic background.

Originally Posted by larry12468

1. I gather from your comment that you are you saying that the name of the pages is probably the single most important item not to change?

Look at what Josh H wrote. If all you are changing is the graphics, keep everything else the same. No need to change the page name and the page ranking will carry over.