Web Development
Website Redesign
Most redesigns lose traffic, and almost all of that loss is preventable. The prevention happens at the start, not at launch.
A redesign rebuilds a site without losing the rankings and conversions it already earns. The Nexclick crawls and maps the existing site before any design work starts, because the most expensive mistake in a redesign is made six weeks before launch and discovered six weeks after.
Is this you?
What usually prompts the call
- The site looks dated next to competitors and it is costing you credibility.
- You redesigned three years ago, lost traffic, and never fully recovered.
- The site works but converts badly and nobody has established why.
- Your brand has changed and the site no longer looks like the same company.
What we do
The actual deliverables
Things that appear on an invoice, not adjectives.
- Measure what currently works, first
- Which pages earn traffic, links and enquiries. A redesign that removes a page quietly earning a third of your leads is the most common and most avoidable failure.
- Full crawl and URL inventory before design
- Every live URL captured and ranked by traffic and links while the old site is still up. This cannot be done retrospectively, which is why late involvement limits what can be protected.
- Content audit and consolidation plan
- What to keep, improve, merge or remove — decided on data rather than on whether anyone still likes it.
- Design against real content
- Your actual headlines and copy lengths. Layouts designed around ideal placeholder text fail the moment a real product name runs to three lines.
- Conversion analysis of the current site
- Where people currently leave, from session recordings and form analytics, so the redesign fixes known problems rather than introducing new ones on instinct.
- Redirect mapping and staging verification
- One-to-one redirects tested on staging before launch. Blanket redirects to the homepage are treated as soft 404s and discard the equity you are trying to keep.
- Post-launch monitoring
- Daily crawls, index coverage and rank tracking for a fortnight after launch, so anything broken is caught in hours rather than at the next monthly report.
Checklist
What to do before signing off any redesign
Every item here has, at some point, been the single reason a redesign cost a business traffic or revenue. Work through it before launch — with us, or with whoever is building it.
- 01Full crawl of the existing site archived, while it is still live.
- 02Every URL with organic traffic in the last 12 months identified and mapped to a successor.
- 03Every URL with inbound links identified and mapped, including ones with no traffic.
- 04The top 20 pages by conversions listed, and confirmed as surviving the redesign.
- 05Redirect map is one-to-one, with no blanket redirects to the homepage.
- 06Redirects tested on staging and verified as 301 rather than 302.
- 07Staging noindex and robots.txt disallow removed before go-live — check this twice.
- 08Analytics and conversion tracking verified as firing on the new site, on staging.
- 09Forms tested end to end, including the notification email actually arriving.
- 10Page titles and meta descriptions carried across or deliberately improved, not regenerated blank.
- 11Structured data reimplemented and validated on the new templates.
- 12Designs reviewed against your longest real headline and product name.
- 13Tested at 320px width and at 200% zoom.
- 14Accessibility checked — keyboard navigation, contrast, form labels.
- 15Internal links updated to point at new URLs directly, not through redirects.
- 16A rollback plan written down and agreed before launch day.
- 17Launch scheduled mid-week, with both teams available for 48 hours afterwards.
How it works
Step by step, with timeframes
Timeframes are typical rather than guaranteed, and they assume we get account access and approvals when we ask.
- 01Week 1–3
Audit the current site
Traffic, links, conversions, content inventory and a full crawl. Everything that follows depends on this happening while the old site is live.
- 02Week 3–7
Structure and design
Information architecture agreed first, then wireframes, then visual design — with the redirect map developing alongside rather than afterwards.
- 03Week 7–12
Build and verify redirects
Development on staging, redirect map tested there, and a go/no-go recommendation given before launch.
- 04Week 12–16
Launch and watch
Launch mid-week, daily monitoring for a fortnight, then weekly. Recovery from the normal short dip is visible within four to eight weeks.
What you get
Reporting and ownership
- A content inventory with a keep, improve, merge or delete decision on every page, made on data.
- The complete redirect map, tested on staging and version-controlled.
- Design reviewed against your real content, not placeholder text.
- Daily monitoring reports for the first fortnight after launch.
- A before-and-after comparison of traffic and conversions at 30 and 90 days, stated honestly.
Tools and platforms
- Screaming Frog (crawl comparison)
- Google Search Console & Analytics 4
- Ahrefs (link and URL data)
- Session recording and form analytics
- Figma
- Staging environments
Timeline
How long this actually takes
Twelve to sixteen weeks for a marketing site, including the audit and the post-launch window. The audit stage is the one clients most want to skip and the one that protects the most value. Expect a dip after launch: a well-executed redesign typically sees traffic fall ten to twenty per cent for two to four weeks while Google reprocesses, then recover and exceed. A redesign with no dip at all is unusual; one still down at week eight has a problem that needs finding rather than waiting out, and we will say which you are in.
Pricing model
Fixed-price project
Fixed price covering audit, design, build and four weeks of post-launch monitoring. The audit can be bought alone if you want the inventory and redirect map for another team to build from.
Questions
Website Redesign questions
Will a redesign lose us traffic?
It can, and it is largely preventable. Expect a ten to twenty per cent dip for two to four weeks even when everything is done correctly. Losses beyond that come from redirect failures, removed content or a staging noindex reaching production — all avoidable with the checklist above.
Can we keep our current platform?
Often, and it is usually cheaper. A redesign does not require a replatform. If the current platform meets your needs and the problem is visual or structural, changing it adds risk and cost for no benefit. We will say when the platform genuinely is the constraint.
How do we know the redesign will convert better?
By diagnosing the current site first — session recordings, form analytics, where people actually leave. A redesign based on taste is a gamble; one based on where the current site loses people is a set of specific fixes. That analysis is part of the audit stage.
Should we change our URLs?
Only where they are genuinely bad. Every URL change adds risk to an operation that already carries some. Fix structures that are actively harmful; leave merely imperfect ones alone. "While we are in here" is how avoidable losses happen.
How long should we wait before judging the result?
Ninety days for traffic, and longer for rankings on competitive terms. Judging at two weeks means judging during the expected dip. We report at 30 and 90 days specifically so the conversation happens against the right timeframe rather than during the noisy part.
What if we already redesigned and lost traffic?
That is recoverable, and the sooner the better. The first step is comparing an archived crawl of the old site against the new one to find what was not redirected. Most of the loss usually comes back; some link equity does decay while the redirects are missing.
Last reviewed 28 July 2026.
Tell us what you are trying to fix
A 20-minute call, no pitch deck. The Nexclick will tell you what we would do, roughly what it costs, and whether we are the right people for it.