Redesigning an existing website.
A good redesign should improve what visitors see without losing the useful things your existing website has already built up – content, URLs, search visibility and familiarity.
Most redesigns are triggered by the same feeling: the site looks dated, it is hard to change, and it no longer matches the business. All fair reasons.
An existing website needs a little more care than a completely new one, because there may already be valuable content and search history worth protecting. Handled thoughtfully, a redesign keeps everything that was working and improves the rest.
What a careful redesign involves.
Find out what is already working
Before anything is designed, it is worth knowing which pages bring in traffic and enquiries. Those pages get protected, not quietly dropped.
Map the old URLs to the new ones
Every page that changes address needs a redirect, so people and search engines land in the right place on the new site.
Keep the content that earns its place
If a page brings people in, it should survive in some form – even if it looks completely different afterwards.
Launch without a gap
The old site stays live until the new one is ready. The switch happens in one go, with redirects in place from the first minute.
Check afterwards, not just before
Search Console shows within days whether anything needs attention, so somebody should be watching it after launch.
Plan for it to keep changing
The reason many sites need redesigning is that changing them was hard. Building something easy to update avoids the same situation in a few years.
Common questions.
Will a redesign hurt my Google rankings?
Handled properly – redirects mapped, good content kept, structure preserved – rankings usually hold and often improve, because the new site is faster and better organised. The care lies in doing those things deliberately.
How long does a website redesign take?
For most small business sites, four to six weeks from starting to going live. The main variable is content rather than development.
Can we keep our existing content?
Usually yes, and often you should. A good redesign reviews what is worth keeping as it is, what needs rewriting and what has done its job.
Will our website go offline during the switch?
No. The existing site stays live while the new one is built, and the changeover happens in one step with redirects ready to go.
Thinking about a redesign?
Send us your current site and we will tell you honestly what we would change – and what we would leave alone.