A website redesign can go wrong fast. New pages go live, old links break, and your rankings drop overnight. At Greenleaf Creative, we see this happen more than it should. That’s why we pair our SEO services Perth clients trust with every redesign project, not just as an afterthought.
This guide walks through the steps we take before touching a single line of code. Follow them, and your new site can launch with stronger rankings than it started with.
Why SEO Matters Before a Redesign, Not After
Many businesses treat SEO as something to fix once the new site is built. This is backwards. By the time problems show up in Google Search Console, you’ve already lost traffic and enquiries. Getting your SEO services Perth team involved early means fewer surprises and a smoother handover.
Step 1: Audit Your Current Rankings and Traffic
Before you change anything, write down what’s working. Check which pages bring in the most visitors. Note your top keywords and your best-performing blog posts. This record becomes your benchmark. Without it, you won’t know if the redesign helped or hurt.
Step 2: Map Every Important URL
Old websites often have dozens of pages that quietly rank well. A redesign can delete these without anyone noticing until it’s too late. Make a full list of your current URLs. Mark which ones get traffic or links from other sites. These are the pages you must protect.
Step 3: Plan Your Redirects Early
Once you know which pages matter, plan where each one will redirect to on the new site. This should happen before launch, not after. A proper redirect map is one of the simplest ways to keep your search rankings intact during a rebuild.
Common Redirect Mistakes to Avoid
- Redirecting every old page to the homepage instead of its closest match
- Forgetting about image URLs that may also rank in search
- Leaving redirects in place for only a few weeks instead of permanently
Step 4: Keep Your Best Content
Redesigns often come with a tidy-up of old content. This is good practice, but be careful. Some pages look outdated yet still bring in steady traffic. Check performance data before deleting anything. If a page works, rewrite it rather than remove it.
Step 5: Build SEO Into the New Site Structure
Your new site’s structure should make sense to both visitors and search engines. Clear menus, simple URLs, and logical page hierarchies all help. This is where working with a team that handles web design and SEO together pays off. You avoid a situation where a beautiful new site is also a confusing one for Google to read.
Step 6: Test Before You Launch
Before the new site goes live, check loading speed, mobile friendliness, and whether search engines can crawl every page. These checks catch problems while they’re still easy to fix.
Step 7: Monitor Closely After Launch
The weeks after launch matter most. Watch your rankings and traffic daily at first. If something drops, you’ll want to know quickly so it can be fixed before it becomes a bigger issue.
How Greenleaf Creative Helps
We work with Perth businesses who want a fresh website without losing the search visibility they’ve already built. Our SEO services Perth clients rely on sit alongside our design and development work, not separate from it. That means redirects, keyword strategy, and site structure get planned from day one, not patched in afterwards.
If you’re thinking about a redesign, talk to us before you brief a designer. A little planning now saves a lot of lost traffic later.
