Websites age quietly. Often you only notice when customers ask about things that should be on the site, or when you no longer like showing it yourself.
Typical signs
- The site is hard to read or use on mobile.
- Services, prices or contact people are out of date.
- Changes are cumbersome or only possible through someone else.
- Hardly any enquiries come in through the website.
- The design no longer fits your business.
What matters when switching
Existing pages that people find on Google should redirect to the matching new page. Otherwise visitors land on error pages and visibility you have built up is lost. Content that works well should move over too.
A good opportunity
A relaunch is the right moment to rework copy, drop pages nobody needs and add features such as online booking.
Step by step to a relaunch
- Take stock: which pages get visits, which search terms you are found for, where enquiries come from.
- Set goals: what should the new website do better than the old one?
- Plan the structure: which pages stay, which go, which are added?
- Revise the content: align copy and images with the new structure.
- Design and build on a preview that Google cannot find yet.
- Set up redirects from every old address to the matching new one.
- Launch and monitor: submit the sitemap and watch for errors in the first weeks.
What to secure beforehand
- A list of all existing addresses, for example from the sitemap or Google Search Console.
- The pages with the most visitors and the search terms you are found for.
- Forms, embeds and logins that need to keep working.
- Copy and images that work well and should be carried over.
Common mistakes
- The preview is visible to Google and gets indexed before launch.
- After launch, the search engine block from the preview is still active.
- Old addresses lead nowhere because redirects are missing.
- Content that ranked well is shortened or removed.
- Images lose their descriptions, pages lose their titles.
After launch
In the first weeks after a relaunch, rankings on Google can fluctuate until the new pages are picked up. Keep an eye on errors and pages not found in Search Console and fix them quickly. After that you will see whether the new website brings more enquiries than the old one.
Not every old website needs to be rebuilt from scratch. Sometimes new copy, better images and a few technical improvements are enough. That is easy to assess in an intro call.
