Can a localization web design update hurt SEO?

[Ideas-Money-Art]

Hi mozzers,

Me and my team are having a major website refresh and update for one of our client's. The structure of the website can be divided into 2 types of pages: corporate pages(representing the core services of the company which rank nationally) and microsite pages(representing each and every 30+ franchise locations ranking locally).

Right now when you visit the Seattle microsite page you have localization feel but the main nav(of corporate site) remains at the top on top of the subnav(orange under map) which is customized for the location where you are in. My colleague who is the main person in charge of this website update would like to create a better localization experience for users in specific cities by having one main navigation instead of 2 displaying exactly the same pages displayed on the actual subnav (actual microsite)  (images are below of actual and potential look of the website). FYI: URLs will remain the same.

I really like this idea of a more personalized experience but I am afraid that the local seo strategy we have done so far may be jeopardized because of this new design but i am not sure.  Am I right? Are we going to lose national and/or local rankings? Will this fresh design hurt the SEO we have been doing for the past few years?

It would be great to provide me "best practice" tips to follow for this case as far as what are the steps I should be paying attention...

Thank you guys!

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[SEO5Team]

Hi Taysir,

In our opinion, the change in primary and secondary navigation (combining it) should not impact your overall SEO efforts as the content is still there, (you still have the secondary navigation terms merged under one nav)

If you have really good local ranks for the franchisee pages, then i would suggest rolling out this change in phases. Start by changing the territories that don't have as much activity in terms of search volume. Make the change and observe the rankings over the next 30-60 days. If there is no noticeable impact , then you can make the change across the board. Better to be safe than sorry

Cheers,

[Ideas-Money-Art]

Thank you for your response!

[Ideas-Money-Art]

Hi Everyone,

I recently asked this question http://moz.com/community/q/will-a-geo-localization-site-create-thousands-of-duplicates and is somewhat related to this thread. If anyone could help me out answering this question, that would be great!

Thanks in advance!