Articles on: 4. Third Party Tools

Preserve Your StyleCloud SEO: Best Practices for Long-Term Success

Whether you’re doing a fresh install or taking a copy of your current site, it's essential to preserve key content and SEO elements on your StyleCloud website. You don’t want to drastically change everything at once—Google may see that as a red flag and penalize your rankings. Losing SEO value due to missing metadata, broken links, or poor site structure on your StyleCloud website can cost you traffic, leads, and online visibility. Taking the right steps to maintain your SEO ensures a smooth transition and continued success on the platform.


1. Sitemap - Keep Search Engines Updated


A sitemap is like a navigation chart for search engines. It helps them crawl and index all relevant pages on your site efficiently.


What to Do:

  • After adding, removing, or changing pages, always update your sitemap.
  • Use an XML sitemap format and submit it to Google Search Console.
  • Include only canonical URLs (the preferred versions of pages).
  • If your site includes media, you can enhance SEO further by including image and video sitemaps.
  • SEO plugins like Yoast or RankMath automatically generate and update your sitemap.


2. Heading Tags: Structure That Supports Both SEO and Readability


Heading tags (H1–H6) provide clear content hierarchy. They help both users and search engines understand the topic and subtopics on a page.


What to Do:

  • Use a single H1 per page, ideally matching the main keyword or focus topic.
  • Structure your content with H2s for major sections and H3s for subsections.
  • Make headings descriptive, scannable, and keyword-relevant, but natural.
  • This not only improves SEO but also enhances accessibility and user experience.


3. Social Share: Control How Your Content Appears on Social Media


When users share your links on platforms like Facebook or Twitter, the title, image, and description that appear are controlled by your website’s metadata. Optimizing this content improves engagement and indirectly supports SEO by increasing traffic and shares.


Use SEO plugins like Yoast or RankMath, which allow you to set:

  • Social Title
  • Social Description (short description)
  • Social Image


Many people overlook this feature, but it's extremely useful for branding, click-through rate (CTR), and user experience on social media.


4. Redirects: Essential for Changing URLs or Removing Content


If you change a URL or delete a page, Google might still have the old version indexed. Users might land on a 404 error, which is bad for SEO and usability. Setting up a redirect ensures that users (and search engines) are sent to the correct location.


When to Redirect:

  • When you change a page slug
  • When you delete a page or post
  • When you consolidate content


Example:

Previously: example.com/about-me

Now: example.com/meet-the-artist

You should redirect the old slug to the new one.


Use plugins like Redirection, Yoast SEO, or RankMath. Both Yoast and RankMath have redirect manager features (available in premium plans). These tools make it easy to set up 301 redirects (permanent) and track 404 errors.


Preserving SEO is about proactive maintenance. Every time you make changes to your site—whether visual, structural, or content-related—you need to think about the impact on search engines and users. By:

  • Keeping your sitemap up-to-date
  • Using structured heading tags
  • Customizing social share metadata
  • Setting proper redirects

Updated on: 18/09/2025