Every old URL
Mapped one to one, before launch
A redirect to the homepage is a lost page. We map each one to its real replacement
04 Fast. Secure. SEO ready.
Web development in the West Midlands
Sites built by the people who then have to rank them. Which is why they are fast on a mid-range phone, crawlable on day one, and do not lose you a single page on launch.
Performance budget
- LCP 2.5s
- INP 200ms
- CLS 0.1
The dashed line is the limit, set before the design is signed off rather than chased afterwards.
Redirect map
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/old-services/seo/Mapped -
/about-us-2019/about/Mapped -
/boiler-repairhomepageLost
A rebuild is the easiest way to lose your rankings
Most of the traffic disasters we are called in to fix were launches. A new site goes live, it looks far better than the old one, and three weeks later the enquiries have halved. Nobody redirected the old URLs, or the new theme ships eleven hundred kilobytes of JavaScript before anything appears, or the staging site went live with its noindex tag still attached.
None of that is bad luck. It is what happens when the people who build a site and the people who have to rank it are different companies who meet at the handover. We do both, so the search questions get asked while the thing is still a wireframe: what is this page for, what search does it answer, where does it link, and what happens to the URL it replaces.
The result is less exciting to talk about than a redesign. It is a site that loads in under two seconds on a phone on a train, that a crawler can read completely, and that you can edit yourself without filing a ticket.
What we build and look after
Six things, from a new build to keeping an existing site fast and patched.
- 01 WordPress Development
- 02 Shopify Development
- 03 Custom Website Development
- 04 Website Redesign
- 05 Website Speed Optimisation
- 06 Website Care and Maintenance
What a rebuild must not break
This is the list we work through on every launch, and it is the reason our launches are dull.
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Core Web Vitals
Measured on a mid-range phone, not a laptop
Budget set at the design stage, because you cannot optimise a heavy design later
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Crawlability
Content and links in the initial HTML
If the navigation needs JavaScript to exist, half your site may as well not
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Structured data
Carried across, not quietly dropped
Reviews, products, FAQs and local markup rebuilt in the new templates
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Tracking and goals
Analytics and conversions tested before go live
Launching blind means you cannot prove what the launch did either way
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The staging noindex
Removed on launch, and verified
Astonishingly common, invisible for weeks, and it costs everything
The order the work actually happens in
Four stages. Nothing in stage three is worth buying until stage one has been done, and we will say so rather than invoice for it.
- 01
Plan the pages, not the pictures
What you sell, where you sell it, and the page each of those needs. The sitemap comes before the design, because the design has to hold the sitemap rather than the other way round.
- 02
Design against a performance budget
Layouts, type and images chosen with a weight limit attached. Everything is checked on a mid-range Android before it is signed off, not after.
- 03
Build on the right platform
WordPress where you need to edit it, Shopify where you need to sell, static where you need it to be fast and cheap to host. Chosen for your situation rather than ours.
- 04
Launch quietly, then watch
Redirect map, index coverage, vitals and conversion tracking checked on the day and again at a week. If something moves the wrong way we find it in days rather than quarters.
Who this moves most
Not everyone needs this, and the ones who need it least are usually the ones being sold it hardest.
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Sites that look fine and load badly
A redesign is often the wrong answer. Sometimes the build is sound and the problem is three plugins and an uncompressed hero image.
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Trades and service firms
Six to twenty pages, a clear enquiry path, and fast on a phone. Most of this sector is being sold far more website than it needs.
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Shops outgrowing their template
Shopify or WooCommerce builds where the category structure is designed for search rather than bolted on afterwards.
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Anyone mid-migration
Changing platform, merging two sites or moving domain. This is where the losses happen and where planning actually pays.
Questions people ask first
Anything not answered here, ask it on the form. You get a person, not a sequence.
WordPress, Shopify or something custom?
WordPress if you want to edit content yourself and need flexibility. Shopify if selling is the point and you would rather not maintain anything. Static or headless if speed and hosting cost matter more than a visual editor. We will recommend the boring option whenever it fits, because it is cheaper for you to live with.
Will a new site hurt our rankings?
It can, badly, and that is usually down to redirects and page speed rather than design. Done with a URL map and a performance budget, a rebuild normally improves rankings because the technical debt goes with the old site.
How long does a build take?
A focused service site is usually four to six weeks from signed off content. A shop or a migration is eight to twelve. The delay is almost always content rather than development, so we start that first.
Do you do the copy as well?
Yes, and we would rather. A build waiting on copy is the single most common reason projects slip, and pages written by whoever is nearest tend not to answer any particular search.
Who owns the site when it is finished?
You do. Your hosting, your domain, your repository, your logins, documented. No proprietary page builder that only we can edit and no licence that lapses if you leave.
Can you work on a site somebody else built?
Usually, yes. We will look at it first and tell you honestly whether fixing it is cheaper than replacing it. Sometimes it is, and we will say so even though the smaller job is worth less to us.
Send us the site and we will tell you what it needs.
A rebuild, a repair, or nothing at all. You get a written answer with the actual numbers: load time on a mid-range phone, how many pages are indexed, and what is costing you most.
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