What is Website Redesign?

A website redesign is not the same as a minor update or a visual refresh. It typically involves reassessing the site's goals and audience, restructuring the information architecture, rewriting key content, updating the visual design, and often migrating to a better technical platform.

The most common reasons small businesses pursue a redesign include: the current site is not generating leads or bookings despite receiving traffic, the business has evolved and the site no longer accurately represents the offer or target client, the site performs poorly on mobile and search rankings have dropped, or the site is built on a platform (like an old WordPress install with dozens of plugins) that is slow, insecure, and increasingly difficult to maintain.

A redesign is a significant investment, in time, money, and attention. It should begin with a clear audit of the existing site: which pages are performing well and should be preserved, which keywords the site currently ranks for (to avoid losing rankings), what conversion issues need to be addressed, and what the primary goal of the new site is.

The single biggest mistake in a website redesign is launching the new site without proper 301 redirects from old URLs to new ones. If a page that was ranking for a valuable keyword moves to a new URL without a redirect, all the ranking history and link equity at the old URL is abandoned. This is why many businesses see a dramatic traffic drop immediately after a redesign, the redirects were not handled.

A well-executed redesign should result in: improved conversion rate from better design and copy, maintained or improved search rankings through proper URL handling, better mobile performance, and a site that is easier to maintain and update going forward.

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