Closing one website opening a different one - advice needed so I'm 'found'

[ITIgnoramus]

Anyone an expert?

I've an old website with one provider (it's a self-made one using templates) and I'm now almost ready to publish my new site (much nicer) which is with a different provider.

They have different domains but only slightly different (am a sole trader and use my name for my business.)

I assume if I 'unpublish' my old site google may show it was Permanently Closed - not what I want, of course.

Should I Permanently Close my old site OR still keep it active but reduce it to a home page with a link to my new site?

I'd keep it for at least a year, until you are seeing plenty of traffic finding the new one. Once that has happened, then when people search for you online, your new site should be higher up in the search results. You need to include as many 'key' words & phrases in the new website that you can cram in. Ask people the sort of search they might do if they were looking for you, ie 'dog walking service Yourtown' or 'Yourtown dogsitting' and ensure that the phrases and other wordings appear on the site on multiple pages, especially on the home page.

That is pretty much the limit of my knowledge on that one. I used to work for someone whose DS was a computer whiz and he was always going on about increasing the Google ranking by using key words.

Oh yes, just remembered - another thing he used to say was to avoid using links to other websites on your website. Once your customer clicks on a link, they are gone and might not come back.

I assume they both have a different web address?

If so I use squarespace and it was really simple to ‘point’ two web addresses to the same site, that’s what I’d do.

You need to include as many 'key' words & phrases in the new website that you can cram in. Ask people the sort of search they might do if they were looking for you, ie 'dog walking service Yourtown' or 'Yourtown dogsitting' and ensure that the phrases and other wordings appear on the site on multiple pages, especially on the home page.

Be very careful doing this, though. If Google decides that you’re ‘keyword stuffing’ it might not include you in searches at all, so the wording needs to look natural.

seranking.com/blog/keyword-stuffing/

You can setup a redirect on a website so the traffic to the "old" one ends up on your new one. You also need to change the landing page on your old one to explain and point people to the new one.
Keep both sites running until you notice traffic dwindling on old one. Also, just update your Google business page to show new website

Exactly, that's what I meant.
Thank you.

I don't need support on SEO-ing so much as I have a computer scientist in the family, (but they are super-busy) and I just wanted to talk through the basics here.

Being brief, if the first site was Jane Smith Interiors, the new one is just Jane Smith dot com.

Why do you want to change domain names?
You would have to restart SEO from scratch, ppl won't update bookmarks, etc.

If the content and audience are the same, redirect your first domain name to the new website when ready and don't use the new domain name.

Thanks

I have bought the new domain name.
I see what you mean but both are easily findable as they are the same except for one word.

The new website is refresh and will be SEOd accordingly, hopefully better than the old one.

Reason for changing is that in my line of work, most professionals use their name only, not the actual 'business' as well.

Think Nicky Clarke, rather than Nicky Clarke Hairdresser.