Redesign your website without losing your Google rankings.
A faster, clearer site that keeps the search traffic you have spent years earning. Every old address mapped, every redirect tested, and 30 days of checks after launch.
Why redesigns lose traffic. And how to avoid it.
Most traffic lost in a redesign is not lost to Google changing its mind. It is lost to small, avoidable mistakes on launch day.
Old addresses that go nowhere
Every page Google knows about has an address. Change the address without a redirect and Google finds a 404 where your page used to be. Links from other websites break with it, and the ranking goes too.
Everything redirected to the home page
It looks tidy, but Google treats it like a missing page. Each old page needs to point to the new page that answers the same question.
Content quietly dropped
The long page about a service you still offer, or the guide that brings in a steady trickle of enquiries, gets cut because nobody checked what was earning its keep.
Staging sites left open, or noindex left on
Google indexes the test site and the real one competes with it. Or the new site launches with a "do not index" tag still switched on. Both happen more often than you would think.
A redirect for every page that matters.
We crawl your current site, export what Google already sends you from Search Console, and map every old URL to its new home. One row per address, one hop per redirect.
Pages that should go are retired deliberately with a 410, rather than left to break. The map is a shared spreadsheet you can see and comment on before launch.
/services.php?id=4permanently redirects (308) to308/services/boiler-repair/about-us.htmlpermanently redirects (308) to308/about/blog/2019/03/boiler-tipspermanently redirects (308) to308/guides/boiler-tips/contact-us.phppermanently redirects (308) to308/contact/gallery/page2permanently redirects (308) to308/our-work/summer-offer-2021returns 410 Gone:410Retired on purpose: out-of-date offer
The migration checklist.
Sixteen checks across four stages. This is what we do on every redesign, whatever the size of the site.
Before we design
- Benchmark. Search Console clicks and queries, top landing pages, Core Web Vitals and enquiry numbers, saved as the baseline.
- Crawl. Every URL on the old site, including PDFs, images and the pages nobody remembers making.
- Content audit. Each page marked keep, merge, rewrite or retire, with the reason written down.
- Backlinks. Pages other sites link to are flagged, so none of that goodwill is thrown away.
While we build
- Redirect map. One row per old URL: where it goes, and why. One hop, no chains, no redirects to the home page.
- Staging behind noindex. The new site is built where Google cannot see it, so it never competes with the live one.
- Metadata carried over. Titles, descriptions and headings that already rank are kept or improved, never lost.
- Structured data. schema.org business, service and FAQ markup, checked in Google's Rich Results Test.
Launch day
- Redirects tested. Every old URL requested by script: each must return a 308 to a page that returns 200.
- Sitemap and robots. New XML sitemap submitted, noindex removed, robots.txt checked twice.
- Forms and analytics. Every form sent for real, every enquiry received, analytics recording.
- Speed and accessibility. Lighthouse and axe on each page template, on the live domain.
The first 30 days
- Crawl errors. Search Console checked for 404s and redirect errors, fixed the same week.
- Rankings and clicks. Compared with the baseline weekly. A dip in week one is normal; a dip in week four gets investigated.
- Real-user speed. Core Web Vitals field data reviewed once Google has enough visits.
- A written report. What moved, what we fixed, and what we would do next.
What changes for your visitors. Everything except the address.
Your customers find you the same way they always have. What they land on is faster, clearer and easier to act on.
Pages that load in under 2.5 seconds
Server-rendered pages and properly sized images, passing Core Web Vitals on a mid-range phone.
A site everyone can use
Built to WCAG 2.2 AA: keyboard, screen reader and zoom all work. Often the old site fails on all three.
One clear next step per page
Call, book, buy or ask for a quote, placed where a thumb can reach it.
An admin portal your team can use
Add it and stop waiting on whoever built the old site. Change prices, pages and photos yourself.
What a redesign costs.
A redesign is a business website with the migration built in. The checking that keeps your rankings is part of the price, not an extra.
Redesigns from £450, with the crawl, redirect map and 30 days of checks included. Compare packages
Moving a shop? See online shops with Stripe checkout. Running a clinic? See clinic websites patients can book from. Working in a trade? See websites for trades. We bring the same care to change that we use on the platform we run for nine NHS Stop Smoking Services, where nothing is allowed to break on release day.
Fix what the old site could never do.
A redesign is a good moment to fix more than looks. If your team retypes every enquiry into another system, the new site can be built ready to connect.
The same address, a better siteYou start here
Faster, clearer and easier to edit, with your rankings carried across.
Enquiries straight into your systems
Form answers land in your CRM, inbox rules or job list, so nobody copies them across by hand.
Payments the old site could not take
Deposits, vouchers or a full shop, added to the new site rather than bolted on.
Redesign questions
Something else? hello@echticstudios.com
Will I lose my Google rankings if I redesign my website?
Not if the move is done properly. Rankings are mostly lost through broken URLs, missing redirects and content that disappears. A complete redirect map, content carried over and checks after launch protect what you have earned. Nobody can guarantee rankings, but we can make sure nothing we do throws them away.
Why 308 redirects rather than 301?
Both are permanent redirects, and Google treats them the same way for ranking. A 308 also keeps the request method intact, which is the stricter, more modern choice. What matters most is that every old URL goes to its closest new page in a single hop.
Can I keep my domain and email?
Yes. Your domain stays yours and your email is untouched. We change only the records that point the website at its new home, and we check your email records before and after.
How much does a website redesign cost?
A redesign is priced as a business website, from £450, with the migration, redirect map and launch checks included. Larger sites with hundreds of pages are quoted on their content audit.
How long does a redesign take?
Most take 1–2 weeks from go-ahead. The content audit and redirect map happen in the first two weeks, while the design is under way.
Can you move us off WordPress, Wix or Squarespace?
Yes. We export your pages, posts and images, rebuild them on the new site and redirect every old address, including the odd ones those platforms create.
What if traffic drops after launch?
Some movement in the first week or two is normal while Google re-crawls. We watch Search Console daily in the first week and weekly for 30 days. If a page drops and stays down, we find out why and fix it, at no extra cost during that period.
Five working days from now, you could have your website plan.
A sitemap, a homepage design and a fixed quote. Free, with no obligation.