How to Plan a WordPress Website Redesign Without Losing SEO Rankings

Redesigning your WordPress website can be an exciting opportunity to refresh your brand, improve user experience, and boost conversions. But if not done correctly, it can also be a nightmare for your search engine rankings. A poorly planned redesign can lead to lost traffic, broken links, and a dip in visibility—something no business wants.

In this article we list some of the best practices around this process, things that we do in all of our projects where we are redeveloping an existing WordPress site.

Audit Your Current Website

Before making any changes, it’s crucial to understand what’s working and what’s not. Use tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and SEO auditing software (such as Ahrefs or Screaming Frog) to assess your website’s current performance. Identify:

• High-performing pages (so you don’t accidentally remove them or indeed change the URLs)
• Top-ranking keywords
• Traffic sources
• Backlinks pointing to your site (again so you can avoid changing the URLs)

Create a 301 Redirect Plan

One of the biggest SEO pitfalls in a redesign is failing to properly redirect old URLs. If you change page URLs, make sure to implement 301 redirects to point them to the new locations. This ensures that search engines and users can still find the content they’re looking for, preserving your rankings and preventing broken links.

On our platform we do this on the server infrastructure (ie before the traffic hits our WordPress stack) to make the redirect execute quickly without affecting WordPress’ performance.

Maintain On-Page SEO Elements

During your redesign, ensure that crucial on-page SEO elements remain intact, including:

• Page titles and meta descriptions
• Header tags (H1, H2, etc.)
• Alt text for images
• Internal linking structure
• Schema markup (if applicable)

If you’d like more info on WordPress SEO – check out our article here.

Implement a Staging Site

Never make major changes on a live site! Set up a staging environment where you can test the redesign before pushing it live. This allows you to check for issues, test redirects, and ensure everything is functioning properly without affecting user experience.

Again, on our Managed WordPress platform this is easy to do but there are plugins and options for other hosting systems to create a staging (a copy) or your website to work on.

Optimise for Speed and Mobile

Google prioritises fast-loading and mobile-friendly websites. As part of your redesign, ensure:

• Images are optimised for web
• Caching is enabled and optimised
• CSS and JavaScript are minified
• The site is responsive across all devices (think mobile phones, tablets etc..)

Test Before and After Launch

Once your redesigned site is ready, conduct thorough testing before going live:

• Crawl the site using a tool like Screaming Frog to check for broken links and missing meta tags
• Compare page speed before and after the redesign
• Ensure all 301 redirects are working correctly
• Monitor Google Search Console for any indexing issues

Track Performance Post-Launch

After launching your redesigned site, keep a close eye on your SEO performance. Use Google Analytics and Search Console to monitor traffic, rankings, and any potential issues. If rankings drop, identify and address the causes quickly.

Need help with a WordPress redesign? Get in touch with our team, to chat about your needs.