Website Redesign in Ottawa
An outdated website isn’t just an aesthetic problem. It’s a slow one that loses visitors on mobile before the page finishes loading. It’s a security problem running plugins nobody has updated since 2019. And it’s an SEO problem because Google has been quietly penalizing it for page speed and mobile usability while your competitors’ newer sites climb past you. Most business owners know their site needs work. The question is how much.
Signs You Need a Redesign
- It doesn’t work properly on mobile – and most of your visitors are on mobile
- It loads slowly – more than three seconds and people leave before it’s done
- You’re embarrassed to hand out your URL
- It reflects a version of your business that no longer exists
- The back end is a mess and you dread logging in to change anything
- You’ve outgrown what the current setup can do
- You’re running outdated plugins or an old WordPress version – a real security exposure, not a theoretical one
Not Sure If You Need a Redesign or Just Updates?
Sometimes a site needs a full rebuild. Sometimes three specific fixes solve 80% of the problem. Before you commit to anything, I’m happy to take a look at your current site and give you a straight opinion. Using Screaming Frog and a few free audit tools, I can see what’s broken, what’s slow, what Google can and can’t index, and what the actual scope of work is. That conversation costs nothing.
What a Redesign Actually Involves
A redesign isn’t just making it look better. Done properly, it’s a rebuild from the structure up – with your content, your branding, and the lessons of what the old site got wrong carried forward.
What carries over: your domain, your content (rewritten where it needs it), your SEO authority if handled correctly, and your existing brand.
What changes: the code, the theme, the page structure, the mobile experience, the speed, and usually the copy – because most business websites were written in a rush years ago and don’t reflect how you actually talk about what you do now.
Part of the process is a content audit – going through your existing pages and deciding what’s worth keeping, what needs rewriting, and what should just be cut. More pages isn’t always better for SEO. A tighter site with well-written content outperforms a bloated one almost every time.
Protecting Your SEO During a Redesign
The biggest risk in a redesign is losing search rankings you’ve already earned. This happens when URLs change without proper redirects, when page titles get rewritten carelessly, or when content gets cut that Google was crediting to your site. I map your existing pages before touching anything, set up 301 redirects wherever URLs change, and preserve the SEO equity you’ve built. You shouldn’t lose ground in search just because you updated your site.
If you have Google Search Console set up, that data is invaluable – it shows exactly which pages are getting impressions and clicks, so nothing ranking gets accidentally cut. If you don’t have it set up yet, getting access is one of the first things I’ll do. A SEMrush or Screaming Frog audit fills in the gaps either way.
Frequently Asked Questions
If the core issues are content and minor styling – outdated text, a few pages that need cleanup – targeted updates are probably fine. If the site is built on an old theme, performs poorly on mobile, loads slowly, or you’ve outgrown its structure, a redesign is more efficient than patching. I’m happy to look at your current site and give you a straight opinion before you commit to anything.
It shouldn’t, if it’s handled correctly. The main risks are URL changes without redirects and removing content Google has indexed. Both are preventable. I do a pre-redesign audit and handle redirects as part of the build so your search presence comes through intact – or ideally better than it was.
Similar timeline to a new build – two to five weeks depending on the size of the site and how much new content is needed. Larger sites with many existing pages take longer to map and migrate properly. I’ll give you a realistic estimate after reviewing the current site.
Scope drives the cost more than whether it’s new or existing. How many pages need work, how much content needs rewriting, whether new photography is part of it – that’s what determines the number. Get in touch and I’ll quote based on what’s actually involved.
That’s something I can handle as part of the same project. Having the same person shoot the brand photos and build the site means the images are optimized for web before they go in, the alt text and filenames are handled properly, and nothing gets lost between the photographer and the developer. More on brand photography here.