Redesigning a plumbing website safely

Signs your site needs more than a tidy-up

Plenty of plumbing websites need small fixes rather than a rebuild. A redesign starts to make sense when several of these are true at once:

• The site is hard to use on a phone, with a hidden phone number, tiny text or forms that break.
• It describes services you no longer offer, or misses the work you want more of.
• It runs on software nobody updates, or a page builder that makes every change a struggle.
• It shows credentials or logos you can no longer vouch for, or reviews you cannot trace.
• It loads slowly, especially on mobile data.
• You get calls from the Business Profile but almost none from the website itself.

If only one or two apply, a focused fix is usually better value. We will say so in the scope.

Step one: find out what already works

Before changing anything we look at what your current site is doing. With access to Google Search Console we can see which pages appear in search, for which queries, and how often people click. Your analytics or call records show which pages lead to enquiries. Other websites linking to you show which addresses have built up trust over time.

This tells us which pages must survive the redesign, which can be merged, and which can go. A service page that brings in steady calls for boiler repairs keeps its address and its core content, even if the design and wording improve. A thin page that nobody visits can be folded into a stronger one.

Step two: map every old address

Redesigns lose traffic most often because old addresses stop working. Someone clicks a search result, or a link from a local directory, and lands on an error page. Search engines see the same thing and drop the page.

We prevent that with a redirect map. Every address on the old site gets a destination on the new one: the same address if it stays, or a permanent redirect to the closest equivalent page if it changes. We test the map before launch and check it again after launch using a crawl of the live site and Search Console's coverage reports.

Step three: improve the pages that matter

With the structure secured, we rewrite and redesign. The aim is the same as for a new enquiry website: clear services, honest credentials, accurate coverage and a short path to the phone. We keep the wording that clearly works for search, such as the way a page describes a service, and improve everything around it.

Old claims get checked. If the current site says 24/7 or shows a trade association logo, we confirm with you that it is still true before carrying it over. The ASA has treated "24/7" claims on plumbing websites as objective claims that need evidence, and has upheld complaints where firms could not provide it.^[1] Trading Standards guidance warns businesses to take care when membership lapses or is cancelled, and not to use a logo without authorisation.^[2]

Step four: relaunch and watch

Launch day is planned for a quiet time in your week. We switch the site over, run the redirect checks, submit the new sitemap and confirm the enquiry form delivers. For the following weeks we watch Search Console for errors, compare search impressions with the period before launch and fix anything unexpected quickly.

Some movement in rankings after a redesign is normal while search engines re-crawl the site. A careful redirect map keeps that movement small and short.

What you keep

You keep your domain, your email, your content and all the files. If your current site was built by someone else, we work with whatever access you have and document everything we change. If your current host is slow or unreliable, we can move the site as part of the project, or leave hosting where it is if you prefer.

Questions about redesigns