SEO and website redesign: how to relaunch without losing your rankings
What coaches, consultants and wellness practitioners need to know before they start
Written by Clare Ashbook, SEO consultant
A website redesign is one of the most exciting things you can do for your business. After years of growth, it's a chance to show up in a way that actually reflects who you are now, instead of who you were when you first started out. Your offer has evolved, your confidence has grown, your ideal client is clearer and your SEO and website redesign should reflect that.
If you've been running your business for a few years, your website has also been doing some important work behind the scenes. People are finding you through Google. Perhaps your name comes up when potential clients search for what you do or a blog post you wrote two years ago is still bringing people to your website. SEO and online visibility builds slowly, through consistency and time, and a thoughtful, researched redesign won't undo it.
This post is about making sure that the SEO foundation you’ve built comes with you to your beautiful new website.
Your established website has a head start
A new website starts at zero where it has no history, rankings or backlinks pointing to it. The website has to build it’s visibility and its place in search results from scratch, which takes time. In a nutshell, your website and domain need time to build authority.
An established website is in a very different proposition. Over the years, search engines like Google have been building a picture of it: the URLs of your pages, the words on them, the other websites that link back to you (these are called backlinks, essentially votes of confidence from the rest of the internet), how long people spend on your site and how often they come back. All of this feeds into where you appear in search results.
This is a really good thing. It means that when you redesign, you're not starting over, you're building on a solid foundation that has been gathering momentum. The job is simply to carry that foundation across into the new site thoughtfully and with care.
What to keep in mind as you plan your redesign
Most of the things that can affect your SEO website redesign aren't complicated, they're just easy to overlook when a project has a lot of moving parts. Knowing what they are means you can plan around them.
URLs and redirects
Your current pages live at specific web addresses (for example, yoursite.com/services/coaching). If any of those addresses change during the redesign, Google treats the new URL as a brand new page. The good news is this is completely manageable, it just needs to be planned for. A redirect is a behind the scenes instruction that tells search engines (and anyone clicking an old link) that "this page has moved here". Done properly, redirects mean your existing authority carries over and your website visitors can still easily find what they are looking for.
Understanding which content is working
Redesigns often involve freshening up copy to incorporate your current positioning, messaging and offers, consolidating pages or simplifying navigation, which are all things that can genuinely improve your site. Before you start, it's worth understanding which pages are pulling in search traffic so the changes are made with the full picture. Some pages that don't look like much might be bringing in a steady stream of visitors might actually be performing well. An SEO audit before you begin means nothing valuable gets removed.
Meta data
This is the information that appears in Google search results. It’s the title and brief description people read before they click. It's one of the easiest things to carry across to a new site but it can get accidentally wiped or overwritten during a migration if it's not specifically accounted for. Making sure your meta descriptions copy across is important.
Backlinks
If other websites link to specific pages on your site, such as a directory, a press mention or a fellow practitioner recommending you, these links are part of your SEO profile. As long as the pages they point to still exist (or have a redirect in place), those links will continue working for you. This is another reason why planning URL changes carefully is worth a little time and consideration up front.
None of this needs to slow down a redesign or make it feel daunting. It's simply about making sure these things are on the checklist and that the right people know to look out for them.
How design and SEO work together
A good Squarespace designer is already thinking about SEO when they build. The structural decisions they make directly affect how search engines read your site and a designer who takes this seriously is covering a lot of ground as standard. This typically includes things like:
A clean page structure with clear, logical headings (H1, H2, H3 etc) that help search engines understand your content
Descriptive page titles and meta descriptions for each page
Responsive design that works properly on desktop and mobile (increasingly important for search rankings)
A sensible URL structure, readable addresses that describe clearly what is on each page
Image optimisation and alt text (a brief written description of each image that search engines can read, which also helps with accessibility)
Redirects for any pages where the URLs are changing
These are the foundations that make your site trustworthy to search engines and that everything else builds on.
Where an SEO specialist adds to the picture
An SEO consultant works alongside your designer, with the two roles complementing each other well.
Before the redesign begins, the SEO work is about taking stock: which pages are bringing in traffic, which keywords you are ranking for, where your backlinks are coming from. This gives you a clear picture of what you have built and what is working well, and shapes the redesign decisions that follow.
During the build, an SEO specialist can keep an eye on the things that matter most for search: that redirects are handled correctly, that structural changes are made thoughtfully and that nothing slips through that would take months to notice and recover from.
After launch, there's usually a period of monitoring, making sure the new site is being properly indexed by Google, that traffic is holding steady, and that any early issues are caught and fixed quickly.
It's a genuinely collaborative process. Your designer brings craft and design skills, while your SEO specialist brings knowledge of what you have already built and how to carry it forward. Together, they make for a smooth and stress-free transition.
A redesign is a milestone worth doing properly
After years in business, a website redesign is so much more than a cosmetic refresh, it's a reflection of how far you have come and where you are heading next. The version of you who built your first site knew a lot less than you do now. Your new site gets to show the wisdom and mastery behind your work that took years to develop.
Going into it with some SEO awareness means that the visibility you have spent years building doesn't disappear in the process and that your new site gets to hit the ground running. That's a really good position to be in.
About Clare Ashbrook
Clare Ashbrook is an SEO consultant who works with coaches, creatives and wellness practitioners. She helps businesses get found online in a way that feels true to who they are, through clear information, thoughtful content and genuine connection.
Find out more at clareashbrook.com
