Website redesign without losing your rankings

Your website is not working, but it is not worthless either

Most businesses that come to us for a redesign have the same story. The site was built some years ago, it looks dated on a phone, it is slow, and it does not bring in the enquiries it used to. But it has been live for years, so it has something valuable that a brand-new site does not: pages that Google knows, searches it ranks for and links from other websites.

That is the part a careless redesign throws away. When a site is rebuilt, page addresses usually change. If nobody tells Google where the old pages went, every one of those addresses returns an error, the links pointing at them are wasted, and rankings that took years to build can fall away in weeks. It is a common reason a business says its new website looks lovely but the phone has gone quiet.

How we protect your rankings

Every redesign we do follows the same steps, whichever package you choose.

1. Audit. We list every page on your current site, its address, the searches it appears for and the links pointing at it, using Google Search Console where you have it.
2. URL mapping. We match each old address to its new home. A page that keeps its purpose keeps its address where possible; a page that moves gets a direct match, never a blanket redirect to the home page.
3. 301 redirects. Each old address gets a permanent 301 redirect to its new page, so visitors and links arrive in the right place and Google passes the old page’s ranking value across.
4. Launch and monitor. We submit the new sitemap, check every redirect works, and watch Search Console for errors in the weeks after launch.

Our guide to redesigning a website without losing Google rankings explains the process in more detail if you want to understand it before you start.

Why us

Published, fixed prices. Redesigns start at £995 for up to 5 pages, with Silver at £1,995 and Gold at £3,495. The packages are below and on our prices page, and the price is agreed in writing before we start.

Founder-led, with 18 years of practice. Waltham Websites was founded in 2007 and relaunched in 2026 by Fay O’Leary. In 18 years of building websites for Essex businesses, Fay has rebuilt plenty of older sites, and she plans and checks every redirect herself.

Quick, because AI does the heavy lifting. After a year leading AI automation for a national company, Fay uses AI to do the repetitive parts of a rebuild, such as moving content and writing the redirect rules. A person still designs the site and tests every page, which is how most redesigns go live in 7 to 14 days.

Who it is for

• Businesses whose site looks dated or broken on a phone.
• Sites that rank for something but no longer turn visitors into enquiries.
• Owners who have lost touch with their old web designer and want someone local to take over.
• Shops that need a new design without losing their product rankings. See e-commerce website design.

If your site has no traffic to protect, a fresh website design may be better value. After launch, an SEO and AI search plan builds on the rankings you kept.

The studio is in Great Waltham near Chelmsford, and we redesign sites for businesses across the county, from Chelmsford to Southend and Colchester.