Redesigning your website? Save these things first

Before you redesign, make sure you keep what your old site already earned. That means your web address and email, plus the Google traffic your old pages bring in. A new look won't help much if customers can't find you the week it goes live.

If you're still deciding whether you need a redesign, start with our post on signs your site is costing you customers. This one is for after you've decided.

Before anyone starts building

Make sure the domain is in your name. Your domain is your web address. Log in where it's registered and check that you're listed as the owner, with an email you actually read. ICANN, the group that runs domain names, says renewal notices go out about a month before a domain expires. If those emails go to a past employee, you could lose your address. We covered locking it down in our security checklist.

Find out where your email lives. Your business email might run through your old web host, or through a service like Google. Moving a website can break email if the settings get changed by mistake. Google warns that your email "might not work correctly" with old or wrong settings. Tell your designer where your email is before they touch anything.

Make a list of every page on your old site. Write down the address of each one. If you use Google Search Console, it can show you which pages people find in search. Those are the pages you most need to protect.

Save a copy of everything. Download your text and photos. Old hosts sometimes delete accounts fast once you cancel.

While the new site is built

Point every old address to its new home. If your old services page was at one address and the new one is somewhere else, set up a redirect. A redirect sends visitors and Google from the old address to the new one. Google says to map every old address to a new one and keep redirects "generally at least 1 year." Skip this and old links in Google lead to an error page.

Keep what's working. If a page brings in calls, keep its main topic and wording close to the same. Changing everything at once makes it hard to tell what helped and what hurt.

Don't change your domain and your design at the same time. Google's own advice is to change one thing at a time. If you need a new address too, move the address first, then the design.

After launch

Don't cancel the old host yet. We tell our clients to wait two weeks. If something goes wrong, you still have the old site to fall back on.

Tell Google about the new site. Send your new sitemap in Search Console. A sitemap is a list of every page on your site, and it helps Google find the new pages faster.

Expect a small dip. Google says your visibility in search may "fluctuate temporarily" during a move. For a small site, most pages move over within a few weeks. If traffic is still down after a couple of months, check your redirects first.

Update your Google Business Profile. If your hours or services changed, make your profile match.

How we handle a redesign

When we rebuild a site, we collect your old page addresses and set up redirects before launch. We also check where your email lives on the first call, so moving the site doesn't knock it offline. Your domain stays in your name the whole time.

Thinking about a redesign? Send me your current site and I'll tell you what's worth keeping.