Unfortunately, this blog is based on a conversation I had yesterday with someone who had just invested in a fresh clean look for their website. An update was needed. The results were disastrous!
Updating a website is much like moving a business to a new location.
Plan it out. Have a soft opening of your website. I have moved several times and it is never perfect. Do everything possible to fix all the "kinks" before going live. Google provides good information on the process.
You should read- What is a Site Move?
Don't make your customers look for you. Everyone takes the path of least resistance. We strongly advise against changing the URL and names of your pages. This is how you were found in search engines. Don't throw away the significant work it took to establish your brand on the internet. Ensure your website team understands how to use 301 redirects.
I hate it when this happens. Don't let this happen to you. Make sure you create useful 404 page. Instead of getting page not found users are redirected to a useful page on your website. Let's get serious here. Human attention span is short on internet searches- get them to a useful page.
This is your sitemap. Bing and Google make it very easy for you to submit a sitemap. Click here for Bing and here for Google.