Redesigning a church website without losing what already works
A church website redesign should keep the page addresses that already rank, redirect any that change, and carry over the sermon archive. Most redesigns lose search visibility not because the new site is worse, but because old addresses were dropped without redirects.
What gets lost in a badly handled redesign?
Search rankings attach to specific page addresses, not to the site as a whole. When a redesign changes addresses without redirecting the old ones, the accumulated ranking of every changed page is discarded.
Churches usually notice this six to ten weeks later, as enquiries drop. By then the cause looks mysterious, but it is almost always this.
It is repairable. Adding the redirects retroactively usually recovers most of the loss, though sooner is considerably better than later.
What should be kept from the old site?
Keep any page address that currently receives search traffic, keep the sermon archive, and keep text that took real effort to write. A redesign is a visual and structural exercise, not an excuse to discard content.
The sermon archive matters more than churches expect. It is often the largest body of genuinely unique content the congregation owns, and it accumulates search visibility slowly over years.
When is a redesign the wrong answer?
When the actual problem is that nobody updates the site. A redesign makes a neglected site look better for a few months and then it is a neglected site again.
It is also the wrong answer when the site is simply slow or broken on phones. Those are repairs, and they cost far less than a rebuild.
How is the migration handled?
Every existing page address is listed before work starts. Each one is either kept identical or mapped to its closest equivalent on the new site. The mapping becomes the redirect file that goes live with the new site.
After launch, the redirects are tested one by one rather than sampled, and the old addresses are watched in Google Search Console for several weeks.
What does a church website redesign cost?
A redesign of an existing site runs $2,000 to $4,000 depending on page count, which is the same range as a new build because the work is comparable. Content migration is included.
Where the structure is sound and only the appearance is dated, a visual refresh costs considerably less than a full rebuild. That distinction is worth settling before quoting.
Budget 4 to 8 weeks, and expect a search dip of 2 to 4 weeks while pages are recrawled. A dip beyond that points at a redirect problem rather than normal settling.
Work in this area
Frequently asked questions
Will our Google ranking drop during a redesign?
A short dip of a few weeks is normal as pages are recrawled. A sustained drop means something went wrong, and missing redirects is the usual explanation.
Can we keep our domain?
Yes, and you should. Changing domains discards accumulated trust and adds an avoidable layer of risk to the project.
What if our old site was built on a builder?
Content usually has to be moved manually because builder exports are rarely usable. This is factored into the quote once the existing site has been reviewed.
How long will our site be offline?
It should not go offline at all. The new site is built alongside the old one and switched over once tested.
Can you redesign only part of the site?
Yes. Where the structure is sound and only the appearance is dated, a visual refresh costs considerably less than a full rebuild.
Talk it through first
A short call costs nothing and usually clarifies whether this is the right next step for your organisation.
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