A redesign should start with what your current site is already doing well. Most start with a blank page, which is how businesses launch something prettier that performs worse.
A full redesign is expensive and carries risk. Sometimes it's clearly the answer. Often the same money spent on three specific fixes would do more.
The question worth answering before spending anything: what will be different afterwards, measured in something other than opinion. If the honest answer is "it'll look better", that's a legitimate reason, and it's worth knowing that's what you're buying rather than expecting the enquiry numbers to move.
A redesign that loses traffic is common enough to be predictable, and it comes down to a short list of causes.
The page that ranked because it answered twelve questions now answers three, because twelve made the layout feel cluttered.
A new structure means new addresses. Without a map from old to new, everything those pages earned is gone on launch day.
Old pages nobody remembered were bringing in steady traffic. They didn't make it into the new sitemap because nobody checked.
Decisions made from opinion about what matters, when analytics would have said which pages were actually earning.
Prices removed, forms shortened past usefulness, and clear headings replaced with clever ones. It looks calmer and converts less.
Three months later someone says traffic is down, and nobody can prove whether it is, by how much, or which pages.
Every one of these is avoidable with work that happens before design starts. If your new site is being built by someone else, the same work still needs doing, and it's covered in more detail under SEO migration.
Every page on the current site gets a decision, based on what it's earning rather than what anyone thinks of it. It's dull work and it's what separates a safe redesign from a gamble.
A page inventory, simplified
ExampleThis usually turns up two surprises. There's almost always a page earning steady traffic that nobody in the business knew existed, and there's almost always a set of pages everyone assumed were important that get almost nothing. Both change what the redesign should actually do.
Four things that happen alongside the design work rather than after launch.
Before
Current rankings, traffic per page, and which pages produce enquiries. Without this there's nothing to compare against later.
During
Pages that earn traffic keep their content and their address. They can look completely different and still say the same things.
Launch
Old address to new, page by page, tested on staging before the site goes live rather than fixed afterwards.
After
Daily at first. A problem found in week one is an afternoon's work. The same problem found in month three has cost you a quarter.
If your redesign is already underway with another agency and none of this has been mentioned, it's worth raising now rather than after launch. We're happy to do just this part alongside whoever is building it. More detail on the migration page.
Five stages. The first one is where most of the value is and it's the one usually skipped.
Page inventory, analytics, and what people are currently doing on the site. Ends with a keep, rewrite, merge, or remove decision per page.
The new sitemap and navigation, plus the old to new URL map. Agreed before any design work begins.
What each page needs to say, written or carried over. Design fits around real content rather than the other way round.
Wireframes, then designs, then the build, with the old site still live throughout so nothing is down.
Redirects verified, tracking confirmed, then a month of monitoring against the numbers recorded in stage one.
For most business sites, a couple of months from start to launch. Larger sites with a lot of pages take longer, mostly because of the content rather than the design.
The thing that extends timelines most is waiting on content and approvals. If you can get feedback back quickly, projects finish considerably faster.
No. The new site is built separately and only replaces the old one at launch, so your current site keeps working and keeps taking enquiries throughout.
Switching over takes minutes rather than hours, and we'd schedule it for a quiet period rather than a Monday morning.
Yes, and often you should. Pages earning traffic get carried across rather than rewritten for the sake of it, which is both safer and cheaper.
Where content genuinely is the problem, rewriting it is the highest value part of the whole project. That's a separate decision per page, made from the inventory.
If your current platform is the problem, yes, and the redesign is the natural moment. If it's working fine, changing it adds cost and risk for no gain.
The question we'd ask is what you can't currently do that you need to. If nobody can name something, the platform probably isn't the issue.
Some movement in the first few weeks is normal while search engines recrawl. That's expected and usually settles.
A real drop is something we'd find in week one because we're watching for it, and we fix it. Having the pre-launch numbers is what makes the difference between fixing a problem and debating whether there is one.
Often the better option. Rebuilding the homepage and main service pages while leaving the rest gets most of the benefit for a fraction of the cost and risk.
It works best where the underlying site is sound. Where the foundation is the problem, a partial rebuild leaves you paying twice.
Scoped from the audit rather than quoted blind, since what needs rebuilding varies enormously. Pricing sits on the main web design page.
Related services
Thirty minutes on whether a redesign is the right spend, and what it would need to protect.
Or email hello@culmen.digital