Redesign without losing rankings
A redesign is the most common way small businesses lose their Google traffic. It is also completely avoidable. This is the checklist we follow.
Before you touch anything
Crawl the current site and export every URL. Download the last twelve months of data from Search Console: which pages get clicks and for which searches. Note which pages bring enquiries. These are the pages you must protect.
Make a URL map
A spreadsheet with every old URL and where it will live on the new site. Keep the same address where you can. Where it must change, it gets a 301 redirect to the closest new page, never to the homepage.
Keep the content that ranks
If a page ranks, improve it rather than replacing it. Keep its main heading topic, its key paragraphs and its title tag meaning. You can rewrite for clarity, but do not throw away what Google already likes.
Check the technical details on staging
Titles, descriptions, headings, canonical tags, structured data, internal links, image alt text, robots settings. Make sure the staging site is blocked from Google, and that the block is removed at launch, which is the single most common launch mistake.
Launch day
Put the redirects live with the new site. Submit the new sitemap in Search Console. Test twenty of the most important old URLs by hand to confirm they redirect correctly.
The following eight weeks
Watch Search Console for crawl errors and 404s, fix them quickly, and compare clicks for your top pages week by week. Small dips in the first fortnight are normal. Steady declines mean something is wrong.
Need help with your website?
PHCare Tech designs websites for Ghaziabad businesses from ₹15,000. See our website design service or message us on WhatsApp.