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Welsh Web Designby Webso Digital

Service

Website redesign: keep what earns, replace what loses

A redesign is worth doing when the site loses more than the rebuild costs: a mobile speed score under 50, a form that has not sent an enquiry since spring, pages Google has stopped indexing, or a site built before the Welsh version was needed. We rebuilt a tuning site this year and its mobile speed went from 65 to 96 without changing a word that ranked. That is the whole aim: keep the addresses, the content that brings visitors and the reviews, and replace everything that was holding them back.

One rebuild, measured

65 → 96

PageSpeed mobile score, before and after

0

ranking pages lost; every address kept or redirected

Google's PageSpeed Insights on the live site, the week after launch. The site is a tuning business in England; the method is the same for a site in Wales. Full caveats on the results page.

The signs

Six symptoms, what is usually behind them, and what the redesign does about each

Symptoms that justify a website redesign and their usual causes
What you seeWhat is usually behind itWhat the redesign does
The site takes five seconds or more to appear on a phoneA page-builder theme, uncompressed photos, twenty scripts loading before the textStatic pages, images served in modern formats and sized for the screen, nothing loaded that the page does not use
Enquiries have dried up, but the phone still ringsThe form sends to an inbox nobody checks, or fails silently after a plugin updateA form tested to your phone at launch, monitored every week, with a copy to a second address
Google shows old prices or a page you deletedNo redirects when pages were removed; the sitemap lists pages that no longer existEvery old address mapped to its nearest new page; a sitemap with a real date per page
Nobody in the Welsh-speaking half of your area ringsEnglish only, or a translation widget that reads as oneThe Welsh version built as a second site with a switch that works, where it earns its keep
The site looks fine on your desk and broken on a phoneBuilt for a screen in 2016 and patched sinceBuilt on a phone first; the desktop version is the one adapted
You cannot change a price without paying someoneA theme that needs a developer for a sentenceText, photos and prices are yours to change; hosting and care covers the rest

What we keep

The five things a redesign must not lose

The addresses. Before anything is designed we export every page Google has indexed and every page that received a click in the last twelve months from Search Console. Each one either keeps its address or gets a permanent redirect to the page that replaces it, one to one. Sending everything to the home page is how a redesign loses a year of rankings in an afternoon.

The words that work. Search Console shows which pages bring visitors and for which searches. Those pages are rewritten around what they already rank for, not replaced with something a designer preferred. The pages that bring nothing are the ones we change freely.

The domain and the email. Nothing moves. The domain stays in your name; the mailboxes carry on. If the business also wants a .wales or .cymru, the redesign is the moment to choose which is the main address and redirect the other.

The reviews and the profile.Google reviews live on the profile, not the site, and the profile's website link is updated on launch day so the two agree. Reviews quoted on the old site are quoted again with their dates.

The photographs, if they are yours. Real photos of the shop, the vans and the team are re-cut, sharpened and reused. Stock photos are retired and the photo and copy checklist replaces them with your own.

Fix, redesign or start again

Three answers to the same question, and how we choose

Fix in place when the structure is sound and one thing is broken: the form, the speed of the photos, a page that reads badly. We quote for the fix, do it in days, and say if it will hold. On a plugin-based site the speed fix rarely holds past the next update, and we say that too.

Redesign when the words and the addresses are worth keeping and the platform is not. This is most of the sites we see from 2015 to 2020: real content, real photos, a theme that has not aged, a page builder that has. We rebuild on our stack, keep the content and the addresses, and add what was missing, usually the Welsh version and a form that works.

Start again when there is nothing to keep: a one-page site, stock photos, no rankings, or a business whose services have changed. Then it is a new build with the old addresses redirected, and the price on the pricing page is the same as for any new site. The audit tells you which of the three, with the reasons, before you spend anything.

Questions businesses in Wales ask us

Will I lose my Google rankings?

Not if the redesign keeps the addresses that rank and redirects the ones that change with permanent redirects, page to page, never everything to the home page. We list every address Google has indexed before we start, and the redirect map is part of the launch, not an afterthought. Rankings usually settle within two to four weeks, and the pages that were slow go up.

Can I keep my domain and email?

Yes. Nothing about your email changes. The domain stays in your name, on your account; we never move it to ours. If you have a .co.uk and want a .wales alongside it, the redesign is the moment to decide which is the main one.

How much does a redesign cost?

The same as a new site of that size, £599 to £1,600, because rebuilding properly is building. Where the existing words are good we reuse them, which makes the work faster, not cheaper; the price buys the same site either way. The bilingual add-on is from £350 if the redesign adds Welsh.

My site is on WordPress with a page builder. Can you fix it rather than rebuild?

Sometimes. If the problem is speed, a slow theme and thirty plugins, a fix is possible but temporary, because every plugin update can undo it. If the problem is the words, the photos or a form nobody receives, we fix that in place. The audit says which, and we quote for the fix when the fix is enough.

How long is the site down?

Zero. The new site is built on a private address, tested, and then the domain is pointed at it. Visitors see the old site one minute and the new one the next.

Send us the site and we will tell you: fix, redesign or start again

You get the speed score, the list of pages Google has indexed, what is losing enquiries, and a fixed price for whichever of the three is honest. Within one working day.