Website redesign
Redesign without losing the rankings you have
Most redesign horror stories are the same story. The new site looks better, the URLs changed, nobody mapped them, and organic traffic falls off a cliff in week two. A redesign is a migration with a visual layer on top, and the migration is the part that decides whether it works.
- First deliverable
- Baseline, not a mockup
- Redirects
- Every indexed URL mapped
- Monitoring
- Through launch and after
The problem
Redesigns fail in predictable ways
The design is almost never the reason a redesign goes wrong. The reasons are structural: URLs silently changed by a new CMS, pages that were quietly earning traffic deleted because nobody looked at the data, internal links rewritten, and a launch where nobody was watching Search Console.
We treat the existing site as an asset with measurable value and establish that value before touching anything. You cannot protect what you did not write down.
Why you are here
- The site looks like the year it was built and the brand has moved on
- It is slow, and the slowness is structural rather than a setting
- You are afraid to redesign because you were burned — or a peer was
- Mobile traffic is most of your traffic and the site was built desktop-first
- The content has grown into forty pages nobody has reviewed in years
- A merger, rebrand or new product line has made the current structure wrong
What is included
What a redesign actually involves
Before anything is designed
- Full crawl and inventory of every URL the site exposes
- Analytics and Search Console baseline: pages, queries, conversions
- Backlink review — which pages other sites actually point at
- Core Web Vitals field data recorded as a before measurement
- Content audit scoring every page: keep, merge, rewrite or retire
Design and content
- Information architecture rebuilt around current goals, not legacy menus
- Templates designed for the content you are keeping
- Migration of content worth keeping, rewritten where the audit says so
- Accessibility corrected during design rather than patched afterwards
- Brand refresh applied consistently across every component
The migration layer
- A 301 map covering every inventoried URL, including parameters
- Redirects tested on staging before the DNS change, not after
- Canonical tags, hreflang if relevant, and robots policy reviewed
- Internal links updated to point at final URLs, not through redirects
- XML sitemap regenerated and resubmitted on launch day
After launch
- Search Console coverage and crawl-error watch
- Rank and traffic tracking against the recorded baseline
- 404 log review, with redirects added for anything missed
- Core Web Vitals re-measured on field data, not just in the lab
- A written post-launch review comparing before and after
For reference
The baseline we record before touching anything
This is the first deliverable on every redesign. If the new site underperforms, these are the numbers that tell us exactly where and why.
| What we record | Why it matters | Re-checked after launch |
|---|---|---|
| Every indexed URL | A URL nobody wrote down is a URL nobody redirects | Crawl comparison, old inventory against new |
| Top landing pages by organic entry | These are the pages that must not change address or intent | Page-level organic traffic versus baseline |
| Queries and positions in Search Console | Shows which terms the site is actually earning today | Position and impression movement, weekly |
| Referring domains by target page | Links point at specific URLs; losing those URLs loses the links | Backlink target health and redirect chains |
| Conversions and the paths to them | Traffic is not the goal; the form fills are | Conversion rate against the recorded baseline |
| Core Web Vitals field data | Separates a real improvement from a prettier lab score | Field data, allowing for the 28-day collection window |
Our process
The order that protects you
Understand needs
Measure the site you have
Crawl, analytics, Search Console, backlinks and vitals. By the end of this step we can tell you which pages are earning and which have been dead weight for years.
You getBaseline report and URL inventory
Strategize
Decide what survives
Every page gets a verdict and a destination. The new sitemap is built from that decision, so the redirect map is a by-product of the plan rather than a scramble at the end.
You getContent audit, new sitemap, draft 301 map
Create & build
Design and build on staging
New templates, migrated content, redirects implemented and tested on staging. The site is crawled again there to prove no URL is orphaned.
You getStaging site with redirects verified
Optimize & grow
Launch and watch closely
Launch in a low-traffic window, resubmit the sitemap, and monitor daily through the first weeks. Movement is expected; a cliff is not, and we would catch it in days.
You getLaunch runbook and post-launch review
Honest scoping
When to redesign — and when not to
Redesign if
- The design is genuinely dated and it is costing you credibility
- The structure no longer matches what you sell
- Performance and accessibility problems are built into the foundation
- You are moving platform anyway and want the design to catch up
- The site has organic traffic worth protecting through the change
Do not redesign if
- The real problem is that nobody is finding the site — that is an SEO problem
- The real problem is that visitors are not converting — that is a CRO problem
- The site is slow but otherwise sound; optimise it for a fraction of the cost
- You have redesigned within two years and nothing underlying has changed
- A new executive wants a different colour scheme and there is no other case
One more thing. A redesign is the most expensive way to fix a problem that a cheaper service already solves. We will tell you which one you have before quoting the big one.
Questions
Before you ask us
The things people ask about Website Redesign before they get in touch. If yours is not here, ask directly — you will get a straight answer rather than a brochure.
Ask a questionWill I lose my search rankings?
Some movement is normal after any structural change, usually settling within a few weeks. A sustained drop is almost always caused by unmapped URLs, removed content or a blocked robots file — all avoidable. We inventory every URL first, map each one, test redirects on staging and monitor daily after launch.
Can I keep my existing URLs?
Where they are sensible, yes, and that is the lowest-risk option. Where they are not — dates in blog URLs, numeric IDs, a structure that no longer matches the business — we change them deliberately and redirect properly. What we never do is let the CMS change them by accident.
How long does a redesign take?
Comparable to a new build — about three weeks for most business sites, plus the baseline and audit work at the front. A large content library with hundreds of pages adds migration time, and a full visual rethink adds design time; we scope both explicitly rather than discovering them mid-project.
Can you redesign without changing the platform?
Yes. If the current platform is serving you, staying on it removes a whole category of risk. We will tell you if the platform itself is the reason the site is slow or hard to edit, but we do not move you for the sake of moving you.
What happens to my old blog posts?
The content audit decides. Posts that earn traffic or links are migrated and often improved. Thin, duplicated or outdated posts are merged into stronger pages and redirected there, which usually helps rather than hurts. Nothing is deleted without a redirect.
Find out what your current site is worth
Before you commit to a redesign, it is worth knowing which pages are earning and which are not. Send us the URL and we will come back with the honest version.