Should I Rebuild My Website for Better SEO Rankings?

To achieve optimal Search Engine Optimization (SEO) results, you first need a website that is SEO-friendly. Without such a site, SEO efforts can take much longer and may not be effective at all.

If your website hasn’t been updated in a while, or if your SEO rankings have plateaued, it might be time to consider a website rebuild. Let’s explore when you might need to do this and why it’s generally a good practice to rebuild your site.

Why is an Updated Website Important?

With the rapid pace of internet and technology developments, search engines regularly update their algorithms. Particularly, Google updates its algorithms hundreds of times each year. Thus, even recently updated websites can become outdated quickly.

If you want to stay competitive in an increasingly booming market, your website needs to keep pace with the latest design styles and user experiences. This involves regular technical audits to ensure optimal site speed and code optimization, and adding fresh content periodically. Ideally, you should consider a redesign of your website’s appearance every few years to prevent it from looking outdated—much like renovating a home or upgrading your kitchen.

Website Redesign or Complete Rebuild?

If the backend of your site is still functioning well, you might simply update your website either by yourself or with the help of a web designer. However, if your site’s backend does not support updates, it might be time to completely rebuild your website. Here are a few signs that your website may not support updates:

1. Non-responsive Design

If your website isn’t responsive, meaning it doesn’t adapt well to mobile devices like smartphones, it’s crucial to rebuild. Mobile devices have surpassed desktops as the primary internet access point. More importantly, Google’s mobile-first indexing means that if your site does not adjust to the screen size it is being viewed on, it won’t rank well in search results.

2. Outdated Technology

For example, Google no longer ranks sites built with the once-popular Flash technology. Apple devices do not support Flash, which means websites built with Flash are missing out on a substantial potential audience. Moreover, Flash is notorious for slowing down websites. Since page loading speed is a critical ranking factor for Google, you wouldn’t want your site to suffer in this aspect.

Static HTML is another outdated issue. If your website is built on this old technology, you won’t be able to use modern plugins and other powerful content management features that help improve SEO rankings.

3. Limited SEO Capabilities

When a business is starting out with limited funds for website design, they often opt for DIY website platforms like Wix. These platforms are great for quickly getting an online business up and running. However, when you’re ready to actively grow your business and engage in online sales through e-commerce, you might find the platform’s capabilities too limiting and start seeking greater website flexibility.

For instance, owners of Wix websites might be surprised to find out that Wix sites cannot be exported to another platform without starting from scratch. Wix is also challenging for Google’s crawlers to index, which is bad news for SEO.

Limited technical customization—If you hire an SEO agency to conduct a full campaign to make you visible online, they will hit a wall with Wix as there’s very little they can customize beyond the basics. Despite upgrades in recent years, the platform still lags behind others like WordPress in terms of SEO capabilities.

4. No Editing Access

If you cannot access your site to make edits or add new content yourself and must pay a third party to do it for you, it’s time for a complete site rebuild.

Adding fresh content and keeping your site up-to-date is key to any SEO strategy. Thus, you should have easy access to your site through a Content Management System like WordPress to regularly perform these tasks.

Time to Upgrade Your SEO

If you are looking to enhance your online visibility and grow your business through the power of SEO, contact the experts at HKTechmatch SEO.

We can help you maximize your SEO budget. We collaborate with your company’s web developers to improve, redesign, or rebuild your site to be SEO-ready, then implement a fully managed SEO campaign to make your business findable online. If you already have good rankings, we can help maintain them through our SEO care and monitoring services.