Build · Redesign
A redesign that does not cost you your rankings.
The new site ships with new URLs. Nobody maps the old ones. Six months of search traffic goes out with the old addresses, and the design was never the problem.
The short answer
What a website redesign actually is: a rebuild plus a move.
A website redesign is a rebuild of a site that already exists, which makes it a move as much as a design job. Every page that changes address has to be pointed at its new home, or a search engine reads the old one as gone and the ranking goes with it.
Here is how it usually goes wrong. The new site launches on a Friday. Forty old URLs now return a 404, the rankings those pages held start sliding inside two weeks, and the phone is noticeably quieter by the next month.
None of that is a design problem. It is a redirect problem, and it is entirely preventable: crawl the old site first, list every URL that earns a visit, then decide where each one lands before a single new page goes live.
The honest limit: a redesign does not add rankings. Carrying equity across protects what you already earned. If the old site ranked for nothing, there is nothing to protect, and what you are really buying is a conversion project.
Not every URL deserves to survive either. Thin pages and stale category archives are worth retiring on purpose. The difference between retiring a page and losing one is that only one of those was a decision.
A real page one, captured this month. Ads first, then the three-spot map pack, and the first true blue link most of a screen down. Each block is won differently, and that's the job.
What arrives
What you get: 6 deliverables, and a URL map you can read.
- 01
A crawl before anything moves
We inventory every URL on the current site, what each one ranks for, what traffic it takes. That inventory becomes the baseline every later claim about the migration gets checked against.
- 02
A 301 for every URL that changes
Old address to new address, one line at a time, in a map you can read without a developer next to you. Redirects go live with the site rather than getting patched in the week after somebody spots the 404s.
- 03
The pages that earn traffic kept whole
Headings, body copy, internal links plus structured data carried across rather than rewritten from scratch. A page that ranks is ranking for reasons, and a redesign is a poor moment to guess at which ones.
- 04
A staging site you walk first
The whole build sits on a private URL before it replaces anything. You click through it on your own phone, standing on a job site, on the connection your customers are actually using.
- 05
Cutover in a quiet window
The switch happens when your traffic is lowest, not at 2pm on a Tuesday. DNS, SSL, redirects: all verified live inside the same session rather than left to be discovered in the morning.
- 06
A 404 sweep after launch
We recrawl the new site, confirm every redirect resolves in one hop, then watch the ranking pages for 30 days. Anything that slipped gets caught while it is still cheap to fix.
Fit
Who this fits: 4 signs it is you.
A redesign earns its money when the current site is losing work it already gets. If the site is serviceable and the real problem is that nobody finds it, search work comes first and we will say so.
This is you if:
- Your site looks dated next to the people you bid against.
- It was built for a desktop and it shows the moment you open it on a phone.
- You cannot change your own text without calling somebody.
- You rank for real terms today and you cannot afford to lose them.
This is not you if:
- You want a redesign because you are bored of the look. That is not a business case.
- You want the redirect map skipped to save money. Skipping it is how a move costs you your rankings.
- You need it live next week. A rank-safe move has a crawl and a URL map standing in front of it.
- You have no rankings and no traffic yet, in which case a Starter build plus search work beats a redesign.
How the work runs
How it runs: 4 steps, crawl before code.
- 01
Crawl and baseline
We inventory the old site first: every URL, what it ranks for, what traffic it takes. That is the documented before that every claim about the after gets measured against.
- 02
Map the URLs
Every old address gets a new one written next to it. Pages worth retiring are retired deliberately, and the map is yours to review before we build anything.
- 03
Build on staging
The new site goes up on a private URL. You walk it on your own phone, on the connection your customers use, well before it replaces the live site.
- 04
Cut over and watch
We switch in your quietest window, verify the redirects resolve in one hop, then monitor the ranking pages for 30 days so a slip gets caught early.
Proof, not a pitch
Built by people who ran the truck first.
We ran a fence company across three states in a peak year, and the website was the thing feeding the crews. A redesign that lost those rankings would have cost real payroll, which is exactly why we crawl before we design.
- 300+
- Points in the Deep Audit, worked by hand
- 36
- Hyperlocal pages shipped in one build
- 14
- Categories in the Deep Audit, worked by hand
Every point listed in the report appendix
6 service areas × 6 services, same engagement
300+ points, $1,500
Build
What it costs: published, not quoted.
A redesign prices on the build ladder from $1,500 for a Starter site, $2,500 for the Growth site, or larger custom work from $3,000. A rank-safe migration line item gets added wherever there are existing rankings that have to survive the move. What moves the number is page count plus how much of the content we write for you.
Every build price, on one page| Tier | Price | What moves the number |
|---|---|---|
| Starter site The core site a local operator actually needs: services, service area, proof, plus a phone number that is never more than a thumb away. | $1,500 one-time | Page count, and how much of the content we write for you. Not included. Per-city page sets and published pricing pages are the Growth site. Ongoing search work is a separate monthly engagement. |
| Growth site The Starter site plus the pages that earn search traffic on their own: per-service and per-city pages, published pricing, and the proof library. | $2,500 one-time | How many service areas you need covered, and how many services get their own page. Not included. Custom application work sits in the Custom tier. Moving off an old site that already ranks? Rank-safe migration attaches to any build as a $400 line item. |
| Custom builds Larger builds and custom work, plus migrations where an existing site has rankings that have to survive the move. | from $3,000 one-time | Whether there are rankings to carry across, and how much of the build is bespoke rather than assembled. Not included. Rank-safe migration off an existing site attaches as a $400 line item where there are rankings to carry across. |
Objections and questions
Questions we get asked: 6 answers.
These are the questions that come up on a redesign call, including the one where the honest answer costs us the bigger project.
Ask us something else Will a website redesign hurt my Google rankings?
It will if the URLs change and nobody maps them. That is the most common way a redesign goes wrong: the new site ships, the old addresses return a 404, and the rankings those pages held drain away over the following weeks. Handled properly, every old address points at its new one with a 301 redirect and the equity carries across. The work is a crawl, then a map, then a verification pass after cutover. None of it is complicated. It is just routinely skipped.
How much does a website redesign cost?
Builds run $1,500 for a Starter site and $2,500 for the Growth site, then from $3,000 for larger custom work. A migration where existing rankings have to survive the move can attach to any of those tiers as a rank-safe line item, so the floor is $1,500 rather than the top of the ladder. The redirect map sits inside that scope rather than arriving later as a surprise line. Upkeep after launch is the Care Plan at $99 a month, covering hosting, updates, backups plus small edits. Where you land in the range depends on page count and on how much of the writing we do for you.
How long does a website redesign take?
It depends on page count and on how quickly content and photos come back from you, which is almost always the real bottleneck. The free Snapshot is the only turnaround we put a number on: a few business days, yours whether or not you hire us. For the build itself we scope a timeline against your actual page list rather than quoting a stock number that ignores how big your site is.
Do I actually need a redesign, or just some fixes?
Often just fixes. If the site is structurally sound and the problem is a buried phone number, a nine-field form or a page that takes six seconds to load on a truck, conversion work is cheaper and lands sooner than a rebuild. We would rather tell you that and do the smaller job. A rebuild earns its place when the site cannot be edited without a developer, cannot be made fast, or sits on something nobody maintains anymore.
What happens to my old website?
It stays intact until the new one is live and verified, then it goes dark cleanly instead of sitting around competing with your new site for the same results. You keep a copy of the old files plus the crawl inventory we built at the start. If something needs rolling back in the first days after cutover, the old site is still there to roll back to.
Can I keep my domain and the content that already ranks?
Yes to the domain in almost every case, and yes to the content wherever it is earning something. Pages that rank get carried across with their headings and structured data intact, because a page that ranks is ranking for reasons a rewrite can quietly break. Pages that are thin or duplicated get retired on purpose, with a redirect pointing at something useful rather than leaving a dead end behind.
Related services
What this pairs with: the rest of the stack.
Every one of these is sold on its own, and none of them needs the others to work. Website Redesign sits inside Small Business Web Design, which is where the whole line is laid out side by side.
- 01 Small Business Web Design A site built around how customers actually find and choose you, handed over in full when it ships. Read more
- 02 Conversion Rate Optimization Find where the traffic you already have quietly leaks away. Read more
- 03 WordPress Web Design We work in your CMS if you already have one you like. Read more
- 04 Wix & Squarespace Stuck on a builder platform? We work there too, or move you off it. Read more
- 05 Technical SEO Crawl, index, speed, schema. The plumbing under the rankings. Read more
- 06 Local SEO Ranking in the map pack for the towns you actually serve. Read more
Trades
Who we do this for: named by trade.
A redesign carries different risk by trade. An emergency trade lives on the map pack plus a handful of service pages. A remodeler lives on a portfolio that took years to fill, and every one of those gallery entries has a URL.
- 01 SEO for Roofers Storm-season demand is won in the map pack, not the phone book. Read more
- 02 HVAC Marketing Emergency calls, maintenance plans, and the seasons that pay for the year. Read more
- 03 Plumber Marketing Emergency intent converts in seconds. Most plumbing sites lose it. Read more
- 04 Remodeling Marketing Long consideration cycles need proof published, not promised. Read more
- 05 Contractor Website Design A site that reads like a firm homeowners trust with a six-figure job. Read more
- 06 Marketing for Electricians Panel upgrades and EV chargers are the pages almost nobody has built. Read more
Free snapshot · paid teardown
Send us your site: 300+ points, worked by hand.
A short, sharp look: the top handful of findings, scored, delivered by email. What's broken, in plain English.
Want the full punch list? The Deep Audit is $1,500: the same crawler and link indexes the top-tier agencies run, plus live map-pack checks town by town and AI-assistant citation checks almost nobody local does. 300+ points across all 14 categories, plus a prioritized 90-day plan. Credited in full toward your first month if you hire us within 60 days.
Snapshot delivered in a few business days
It's yours either way. Hand it to your own developer, or your own AI, and it still pays for itself. If you hire us, it costs you nothing.
Site & search audit · what we check
300+ points
- Crawl, indexation and site security 30 pts
- Duplicate signals, structure and internal links 39 pts
- Speed and Core Web Vitals 28 pts
- The experience on a phone 14 pts
- Money pages: content, depth and freshness 24 pts
- Structured data and the trust surface 20 pts
- Search demand and the keyword map 20 pts
- Google Business Profile 20 pts
- Reviews and reputation 16 pts
- Local presence: map results and directories 20 pts
- AI search and assistant citation 22 pts
- Link profile and authority 20 pts
- The operators beating you 22 pts
- Turning visits into calls, and counting them 24 pts
The Snapshot is the top handful of these, free. The Deep Audit is all 14 categories, 300+ points, scored, with a 90-day plan and the full point-by-point appendix. No account, no card either way.
Ready to stop losing customers to the guy with a better site?
Fifteen minutes, no discovery deck. We'll tell you what we'd build, what we'd rank, and what it costs. And if we're not the right fit, we'll say that too.