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Redesigning your website: what to preserve for SEO
You want a website that represents your business, works comfortably on a phone and makes enquiries easier. Before replacing the old version, establish what deserves to stay. This guide helps you commission a redesign with a plan for existing pages, contact routes and search monitoring.
By Numuno Digital, an independent web design and marketing studio in Marbella.
Establish what is changing before choosing the design
Refreshing the presentation, moving hosting and changing page addresses are separate decisions. Your website may need a new visual structure without a new domain or different URLs throughout. Ask the proposal to explain which changes your business actually needs.
Google distinguishes moves involving URL changes from hosting moves that keep addresses intact. Establish that distinction before publication because it determines the continuity work required. Also list functions that must remain available, including forms, bookings and downloads.
Record what the existing website contributes
List current pages and mark those explaining active services, receiving enquiries or being used in advertising, profiles and business messages. Include documents and links customers may have saved. An outdated homepage can coexist with useful information that should not be discarded because of its appearance.
If Search Console is available, share relevant reports through an agreed access arrangement. Page and query data help document the starting point. Combine them with enquiries the business has actually received: appearing in search and acquiring a customer are different observations.
Ask for a decision about each old address
The plan should explain which pages keep their addresses, which move to equivalent content and which are retired. When a URL moves permanently, a permanent redirect communicates that change. A list of new pages alone does not explain what happens when someone opens an old link.
Review the destination as well as the existence of a redirect. Someone following a window-cleaning link should reach relevant service information. Google advises against redirecting many old addresses to a homepage unrelated to their content.
Keep the information customers need to choose you
Agree with the designer what a customer comparing providers needs to know: services, areas covered, your own work and how to request an assessment. A new composition can organise this information better. Replacing it all with short attractive phrases may leave the actual service unclear.
Review each language you genuinely serve. Give someone responsibility for confirming photographs, descriptions, contact details and usage rights. Use the redesign to correct outdated information and clarify the business without inventing offices, customers or results.
Check the journey from an old link
Before approving publication, request a demonstration using a small selection of real links from the previous website. Open a service through one, read it on a phone and follow the contact route until the enquiry reaches its intended destination. Agree which checks belong in the review environment and which happen at launch.
If hosting changes too, include forms, images and documents in testing. Google's hosting-move guide recommends checking the new copy's functions before switching. Coordinate the domain, business email and booking arrangements with their respective owners to avoid interruptions beyond the visual design.
An example brief for a business in Estepona
Illustrative example, not a client case: an Estepona service business wants a website redesign. It has a maintenance page already shared in quotation replies and another page describing a discontinued service. The brief can retain the first, improve its explanation and explicitly decide what happens to the second.
To review delivery, the owner prepares the maintenance link and a test enquiry. They check that the service remains recognisable, the stated coverage is accurate and the enquiry arrives with the necessary context. This exercise defines the scope more clearly than simply requesting a more modern website.
Agree monitoring after publication
Record the publication date and retain a baseline. Search Console lets you review indexation and search performance by page and query. Use consistent periods and filters, and record form or WhatsApp enquiries separately. A change in visits alone does not explain what happened to contacts.
Google warns that rankings can fluctuate while it processes substantial site changes. No one can guarantee that every position will remain or improve after a redesign. Agree who reviews issues and define a monitoring period, tasks and terms in the proposal.
What the quotation should specify
Include pages and functions to be delivered, content to retain, treatment of old addresses and contact checks. Clarify who controls the domain and which access is handed over. Separate the initial project from hosting, maintenance and subsequent improvements.
At Numuno Digital, we review the existing website to define the new project's scope. Send its address, explain the changes you want and identify functions to preserve. We use that information to assess a proposal and a free demo; migration and integration work is quoted according to the agreed requirements.
Do I need another domain for a redesign?
A new presentation does not itself require another domain. Explain whether the brand is changing or another concrete need exists before deciding. Keeping or changing the domain should follow that objective and the continuity plan rather than the website's visual style.
If search data is not available yet, start with current content, links in use and existing functions. Those inputs still support a verifiable handover. The redesign can also establish missing monitoring with the appropriate access and privacy preferences.
Your checklist before starting.
- Separate changes to design, hosting, domain and page addresses.
- Identify pages, documents and contact routes that need continuity.
- Agree the treatment of each old URL and review its destination.
- Test a journey from an old link through to an enquiry being received.
- Define access, ongoing costs and responsibility for monitoring.