A redesign is supposed to bring in more business. Done carelessly, it does the opposite. The site launches, it looks great, and a month later the calls slow down because Google can't find the pages it used to send people to.
The fix isn't complicated. It's mostly a list, kept carefully.
1. Write down every page you have now
Before anything changes, crawl your current site and export every URL. Then check Google Search Console for the pages that actually get clicks. Those are the ones you can't afford to lose.
2. Decide where each old page goes
Every old URL needs a home on the new site. Usually that's the matching new page. If a page is going away, send it to the closest page that answers the same question, not the homepage.
3. Set up permanent redirects
This is the step that saves your rankings. Google's own guidance is to use server-side permanent redirects (301 or 308) from each old URL straight to its new one, with no chains, and to keep them for at least a year.
4. Keep what was working
If a page ranks, keep its topic, its main heading and most of its content. A redesign is a good time to improve a page, but rewriting a top performer from scratch is a gamble.
5. Check the technical basics before launch
- The new site isn't blocking search engines (a common leftover from the staging site).
- Titles, descriptions and schema came across.
- Internal links point to the new URLs, not through redirects.
- A fresh sitemap is ready to submit.
6. Watch it for a few weeks
Submit the new sitemap in Search Console on launch day. Google says rankings can move around for a few weeks while it recrawls. Check for 404 errors daily for the first two weeks and fix them as they show up.
Don't need a whole new site?
If the structure works and it's the look that's dated, our Website Refresh puts a new design on your existing pages, so nothing has to move. If you're unsure where your site stands, an SEO audit shows what's ranking before you touch it.
When a full rebuild is the right call, every new website we build includes the URL map and redirects, and moving platforms is covered by our migration service. Planning the budget? Start with what a small business website costs.