Small Business Website Redesign Guide

Which redesign route fits your site?

Pick the lightest route that fixes the real problem. There are four, and the right one depends on what is wrong and how much of the site still earns.

The hours are our planning assumptions and the EUR 30 to 90 hourly band is explained in our website redesign guide. If you change platform, note that Wix says on its blog that your text, images, product data and blog posts are yours to take, while templates, themes and platform code are licensed and generally do not transfer. Keep your content in your own files.

How do you decide what to keep, merge or delete?

Audit page by page, and let the numbers decide. List every page in a spreadsheet, then add the clicks each page received from Google over the last 12 months (Search Console's performance report shows this), the enquiries it led to (your analytics or form tool), and whether other sites link to it. Then apply these rules.

Here is an illustrative case. A 24-page site shows 7 pages with clicks, 8 with a handful and 9 with none. The 7 are kept and strengthened, the 8 are compared in pairs and merged where they overlap, and the 9 are checked for links before they are redirected or dropped. The numbers are invented to show the method. Your own audit gives the real split.

How do you protect search traffic during the move?

Keep addresses that earn, and redirect every address that changes. Google's guidance on site moves with URL changes gives the sequence:

1. Map each old address to its new one before you build.
2. Use permanent server-side redirects (301 or 308) straight to the final page.
3. Avoid redirecting many old pages to the home page.
4. Keep the redirects in place for at least about a year.
5. Submit the new sitemap in Search Console and watch old addresses fall and new ones rise.
6. Expect rankings to move for a while. For a small to medium site, Google says most pages may take a few weeks to settle.

The SEO guide to redesigning without losing rankings goes deeper, and a supplier should be able to explain their redirect plan in one paragraph.

What should the new site do better?

Fix the reasons you are redesigning, then add only what earns its place. For most small businesses that means:

• A first screen that says what you do, where, and what to do next.
• A phone number and form that work on a phone with one thumb.
• Real proof: reviews, photos of your own work, qualifications.
• One page per service, each with its own address.
• Speed on a phone. Google's web.dev sets the "good" targets at the 75th percentile: largest content in 2.5 seconds or less, interaction response of 200 milliseconds or less, layout shift of 0.1 or less.
• Links from and to your Google Business Profile. See our local SEO guide.

What does a realistic schedule look like?

A small business site is typically a matter of weeks. This schedule is illustrative, for a site of about 10 pages, and it assumes you supply content on time.

What should you check on launch day and after?

Do these on the day: send a test enquiry through each form, load every old address that matters and confirm it lands on the right page, check the site on a phone, and confirm analytics and Search Console are working. Then update your links in your Google Business Profile, email signature and social profiles. In the first four weeks, look each week at the pages report in Search Console, at errors for missing pages, and at enquiries compared with the same weeks before.

Should you redesign or build a new site?

Redesign when the content and addresses earn visits and enquiries even if the look and tools are weak. Build new when the platform cannot do what the business now needs. For a quote, see our web design service, and use the RFP template to make quotes comparable. We quote in writing.