Damage Control After a Botched Website Launch

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Congratulations on launching that new website – it sure looks good!

Problem is, it’s been a few weeks and now your traffic went from ok to just plain pathetic.  What happened? The new site should be bringing more people, not less!

You Moved and Didn’t Tell the Authorities

I’ll tell you what happened – you didn’t tell the search engines about all the changes you made.  Just like when you move and have to update the post office with your mailing address, the pages on your website changed addresses, and now the search engines are lost about where to send visitors – so they just don’t send anyone.

I see this happen a lot, and in the world of online marketing, it’s a pretty tragic occurance.  And unfortunately, by time it is noticed, it’s too late to salvage any of that traffic you should have been getting.

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Launching a new website or redesign without putting in the correct redirects is like launching a brand new company.  The search engines will treat you as if you never existed before.

Ouch.

After the Launch – Damage Control

Luckily, there are some things you can do to help minimize the errors that your web team made.  While you’ll never fully recover from an botched website launch, some steps can be taken to mend the tear and get you some of that traffic back again.

Here’s what you need:

  • Access to your Google Webmaster Tools account
  • Access to the backend of your WordPress site
  • Microsoft Excel or Google Docs for CSV files
  • Depending on how large your site is, lots of time.
  • A recent valid backup of your entire WordPress site, including the database

Once you have all four of these things in place, watch this video on just how to set up redirects for those old pages/links.

http://player.vimeo.com/video/69503003

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