The Main Event: DeSouza Associates’ Digital Transformation 

Taking Stock 

So that we could properly get stuck in with designing a robust URL architecture for the new site, we had to first take stock of what content already existed. A quick Screaming Frog crawl revealed that the site was comprised of just over 300 pages. While not the biggest site we’ve worked on, what made things tricky was the flat URL structure being employed at the time. With each page on the old site branching off the main DeSouza Associates domain, it was impossible to tell at a glance which pages were what without going through each one individually. To add some initial structure to our work, we began by manually going through and categorising all URLs encountered during our crawl. The end result grouped pages up accordingly:

• Blogs 
• Case Studies 
• Types of Event Pages 
• Types of Venue Pages 
• Destination Pages 
• About DeSouza Associates  

With a clear idea of what we were working with, we were then in a much better position to start visualising a site architecture that would enable users and search engine crawlers to seamlessly access all areas of the DeSouza Associates site. 

Finding the Demand 

Our next priority was to investigate search volume and competitiveness around relevant event finding and planning keywords. This extensive research indicated that keywords specific to a particular industry were uncommon (e.g. aviation conference venues). Most keywords used either location qualifiers or specific requirements for the venue such as size or style. 

Following discussions with the DeSouza Associates team, we concluded that the best strategy for widening the site’s reach was through the creation of different content hubs that showcased the different types of events and venues that could be sourced by DeSouza Associates. With dedicated sections of the site for different niches such as conference venues and meeting rooms, we’d also be in a good position to target long-tail, less competitive keywords specific to those areas. 

A Streamlined Site Design

With the existing content fully categorised and a rough idea of the site architecture already forming, we identified another issue. Some of the URLs posed a significant risk of keyword cannibalisation with multiple, low-word-count pages targeting similar areas. Knowing that Google’s guidelines greatly favour quality over quantity, we worked alongside the DeSouza Associates team to create a site structure placing greater emphasis on high-quality, targeted service pages that best reflect Google’s EEAT guidelines, that is content which demonstrates Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness & Trustworthiness.

The finalised site URL structure allowed for DeSouza Associates to keep their main Venue Finder pages while also featuring clusters of high-quality content around more granular areas like Meeting Rooms, Conference Rooms and Team Building Events to name a few. Structuring the site in this way also allows scope for further keyword clustering in the future with location-specific pages like Conference Rooms in London, Bristol, Brighton etc. Even if this kind of expansion isn’t acted on, we wanted to create a site layout that would in no way hinder the DeSouza Associates team when it comes to adding new content.  

The Technical Side

Now that we had a clear idea of what the new site was going to look like, the technical SEO foundations needed to be put in place before the site was migrated over. The first step to ensure a smooth transition was to replace any fixed URL links we encountered on the staging site with relative ones. This way once the staging domain was flipped with the main DeSouza Associates one, we wouldn’t see a flood of 404 errors and 301 redirects. We wanted to give this new site the best possible start after all.  

The second focus was to put together a comprehensive redirect map to be added to the new site’s .htaccess file. Having this in place meant that any URLs no longer being used on the old DeSouza Associates site were automatically redirected to the most relevant page on the new site. Getting this properly set up is integral from an SEO perspective so that the new site can maintain users with the old URLs saved in their browser’s cache. Otherwise, all that direct traffic would have been met with a 404 error which is the last thing we wanted. 

The last thing left to do as the site was migrated over was update all the self-referencing canonical URLs by replacing the staging domain ones. Fortunately, plugins like Yoast SEO make these kinds of tasks straightforward. With that done, the new site was ready for re-indexing. Both the new XML sitemap and core pages were submitted to Google Search Console and after a few weeks, we began to the new URLs, title tags and meta-descriptions being pulled through.