What we do before touching the design
We pull what the current site actually ranks for and which pages earn it. Not what you assume, what Search Console says. That list is the thing the redesign has to protect, and until it exists every design decision is being made blind.
Often it is surprising. The page the owner is proudest of earns nothing, and some old service page nobody has looked at in three years is bringing in most of the inquiries. You cannot know that without looking, and you cannot safely redesign without knowing it.
New content goes above the old, not instead of it
If a page ranks, we do not rewrite it. We add to it. New sections go above what is already there, the existing copy stays, and the page gets better without the part search engines already trust being thrown away.
This is the rule that gets broken most in a redesign, because a rewrite feels like progress and an addition feels like a compromise. The traffic numbers two months later disagree.
Every old URL has to land somewhere on purpose
A redesign usually changes URLs, and every changed URL that is not redirected is a page that disappears along with whatever it was earning. The map gets written before launch and checked after, by requesting each old address rather than trusting a list.
Google also keeps showing old URLs for a long time after a move, so the redirects have to work for months, not days.
What usually needs changing, and what usually does not
What needs changing: page structure, speed on a phone, how long it takes to find the phone number, whether each service has a page of its own or shares one.
What usually does not: the whole brand. Plenty of Kansas City redesigns are sold as a visual overhaul when the real problem is that nine services share one page and nothing can rank. That is a structure job, and it costs less than a rebrand.
We will tell you if the site you have is closer to working than you think. The broader approach is on the Kansas City web design page.
When a redesign is actually the right call
When the site cannot be edited without a developer. When it was built before phones mattered and still shows it. When the structure is one page per department instead of one page per service. When the platform is abandoned and nobody updates it.
Not just because it looks dated. A plain site that loads fast and answers the question beats a beautiful one that does neither.
The month after launch is part of the job
Rankings wobble after any structural change. The question is whether they come back, and that is answered by watching rather than hoping. We check index coverage, the redirect map and the pages that mattered most, weekly, for the first month.
If something dropped we want to know in week one while it is still easy to trace, not in month three when a dozen other things have changed.
What a redesign costs and what moves the number
The page count moves it most, then whether the content needs writing or just moving. A twelve page service site where the copy exists is a different project from the same site where every page needs researching and writing first.
Ecommerce moves it again, because products, categories and checkout each add work that a brochure site does not have. So does anything with booking, member logins or an integration with software you already run.
We quote the scope rather than a flat monthly figure: pages, revisions, what happens after launch and what does not. A single number with nothing itemized behind it is asking you to trust rather than check.
Redesign questions Kansas City owners ask
It can, and that is the main risk. It happens when URLs change without redirects, when ranking pages get rewritten, or when content quietly shrinks in the rebuild. All three are avoidable, and avoiding them is most of what we are doing in the planning phase.
Six to ten weeks for a typical Kansas City service business, longer if the content needs writing rather than moving. The planning and URL mapping take longer than owners expect and the visual work takes less.
Yes, and sometimes that is the right project. If the design is fine and the problem is that everything lives on four pages, restructuring is cheaper, faster and lower risk than a full rebuild.
We can still read Search Console and the live rankings, which is most of what matters. Analytics helps but it is not the thing protecting you. Knowing which pages rank is.
No. Plenty of redesigns stay on the same platform and just get rebuilt properly. Changing platform adds migration risk, so it needs a reason beyond preference.
Thinking about a redesign?
We will map where you rank across Kansas City and show you the gaps.