Redesigning affects ranking?

[dbansal]

I have a site with 2,00,000 hits and 14,000 unique visitors each month. Problem is that this site is not having sales even after ranking with competitive keywords in all search engines.

Client is planning to redesign the website. So will redesigning the site affect present rankings?

Although we are planning to redesign with same text, linking structure. Still want to take suggestions before going for big thing.

[seobook]

I have a site with 2,00,000 hits and 14,000 unique visitors each month.
that is some good traffic there.

Problem is that this site is not having sales even after ranking with competitive keywords in all search engines.
that is indeed a problem.

Client is planning to redesign the website. So will redesigning the site affect present rankings?
likely a small amount, but your not losing anything anyway since you are not making any sales now. you also can make the pages better optimized and structure the internal linking better and build more links to help improve rankings.

Although we are planning to redesign with same text, linking structure. Still want to take suggestions before going for big thing.
I doubt this would cause a big difference if the linear layout of the code is extremely similar. make sure you use text links where possible and descriptive alt tags when you use image links.

[sugarrae]

"Although we are planning to redesign with same text"

If you are in an industry that is profitable and you should be making sales from those visits (i.e. assuming the visits are targeted traffic in search of a product that sells) - then I would suggest re-evaluating the text on the page as well. Not from a rankings standpoint, but from a copy standpoint. I would imagine those 14000 visitors aren't targeted, the product isn't in demand or the site has serious usability and/or copy issues.

[Jeff Martin]

Here's the thing...

Your client has the traffic but they are not converting.

There a several reasons for this off the top of my head:

1. The site is optimised for the wrong keywords

2. The copy of the site doesnt communicate value to the user

3. The user doesnt have enough confidence in the site to make a purchase

4. The user has difficulty in purchasing an item

Only #3 and #4 can be affected by a redesign.

[AussieWebmaster]

I would suggest reading the articles at SEW such as this:
http://searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/article.php/2168021
and you should get a good overview of what to cover from an optimization stance while developing new design.