Migration7 min read

How to redesign without breaking what works

A redesign is the most common way a business loses rankings and conversions it already had. Not because the new site is worse looking — usually it is better — but because nobody recorded what was working before it was replaced.

The discipline is straightforward: measure first, change deliberately, verify after.

Before: write down what currently works

You cannot preserve what you have not recorded. Capture, before anything is touched:

  • Your top 20 pages by organic traffic, and the queries each ranks for. From Search Console.
  • Your current conversion rate, per page, on the pages that generate enquiries.
  • Current Core Web Vitals field data, so you can tell afterwards whether the new site is genuinely faster or just feels it.
  • The full URL inventory — Search Console, analytics and a crawl, combined.
  • Screenshots of the pages that convert best. You will want to know what the old one looked like when the new one performs worse.

During: change one thing at a time, if you can

The reason redesigns are hard to evaluate is that everything changes at once — design, copy, structure, URLs, platform. When conversions drop 20%, there is no way to know which change caused it.

Where possible, separate them. Migrate the platform while keeping URLs and copy. Then redesign. Then rewrite copy. Each step is measurable.

This is not always practical, and a full rebuild often has to ship at once. If so, at least be honest with yourself that you will not be able to attribute the outcome — and be more conservative with the pages that already convert.

The pages that already convert well are the ones to change least. A redesign is a good moment to improve pages that are underperforming and a bad moment to redesign the one page that produces half your enquiries.

Launch: the technical checklist

Every URL kept or 301-redirected to a specific equivalent. Self-referencing canonicals on every page. `noindex` removed from the production build — verify on the live site. robots.txt not blocking anything the old one allowed. New sitemap submitted. Structured data carried across. Analytics and conversion tracking firing, verified with a real test submission rather than assumed.

That last one is worth emphasising. Broken conversion tracking after a redesign means you spend a month believing enquiries collapsed when they did not, or worse, believing they are fine when they are not.

After: verify rather than hope

Week one: check for 404 spikes in Search Console and confirm forms actually deliver. Send a test enquiry yourself, from a phone, on mobile data.

Weeks two to four: expect a ranking wobble; watch it recover. Compare conversion rate per page against your pre-launch numbers.

Week five onward: if traffic or conversions have not recovered, go back to the list you wrote before launch and find the specific page that changed. This is why you wrote it down.

Common questions

Why did my traffic drop after a redesign?

Most often URL changes without proper 301 redirects, a canonical still pointing at staging, or `noindex` shipped to production. Less often, content that ranked was cut or rewritten during the redesign. Check the technical causes first — they are faster to diagnose and more likely.

Should I change my URLs during a redesign?

Only where the existing structure is genuinely poor. Every change is a redirect and a small risk. Restructuring URLs for tidiness alone is a real cost with no return.

How long until I know if a redesign worked?

Four to six weeks for rankings to settle, and about a month before Core Web Vitals field data reflects the new site. Conversion changes show faster if you have enough traffic. Judging at week one will give you a false answer in either direction.

Should I redesign the pages that convert well?

Change them as little as possible. A redesign should fix underperforming pages, not risk the ones producing your enquiries. If you must change a high-converting page, change it separately and measure it on its own.

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