Contractor website redesign

What this service is

A full rebuild of an existing contractor website, with new design, new structure and rewritten pages, and a planned move from the old addresses to the new ones. It starts at NZD 7,500, plus GST where applicable. That covers a current site of up to forty pages. The extra cost over a new build pays for the inventory and redirect work, which a new site does not need.

When a redesign is the right call

Not every tired site needs rebuilding. If the problem is one weak area, such as a confusing quote form or project photos that load slowly, a smaller service fixes it for less. A redesign makes sense when several of these are true:

• the site is hard to read or use on a phone
• you cannot update it yourself without help
• the services listed no longer match the work you want
• project pages are missing, out of date or all on one long page
• the design no longer matches how your business looks on vans, signs and quotes

If we think a smaller job would do, we will say so before quoting.

Step one: inventory the old site

Before anything is designed, we list every page on the current site: its address, its title, what it is about and whether it still matters. We also look at which old pages other sites link to and, if you have Search Console, which pages people arrive on. From that list, each old page is given one of three outcomes:

• Keep. The content moves to a new page, rewritten if needed.
• Merge. Several thin pages become one stronger page.
• Retire. The page has no useful content and no replacement, so it is left to return a not found response.

Step two: the redirect map

Google's site move guidance says to map each old address to its new equivalent and use permanent server-side redirects, such as 301 or 308, wherever possible. It also says to keep redirects in place for as long as possible, generally at least a year. The redirects live on your server, so keeping them is in your hands; we recommend leaving them in place for at least that year.

The redirect map is a spreadsheet you keep. Every old address appears once, with its new address beside it, so if a link turns up years later you can see where it should go. Redirects point straight to the final address, in one step, rather than chaining through several.

Step three: design and build

The new site is planned and built the same way as our full builds: service pages, a project portfolio, a quote request form and coverage stated plainly. Because the old site already exists, we can carry over the projects and wording that still serve you and replace the rest.

We build to WCAG 2.2 level AA as our working target, test on phones first, and keep the phone and desktop versions identical in content, as Google's mobile-first guidance expects.

Step four: launch and check

On launch day, we switch the site, then request every address on the redirect map and confirm it lands on the right page in one step. We check that no new page is accidentally blocked from search engines, submit the new sitemap and look for broken links.

Google's guidance warns that visibility may move about while pages are recrawled after a move. We tell you that before launch so a dip in the first weeks is not a surprise, and we do not promise that the new site will rank where the old one did or better.

What is included

• a full inventory of the old site and a keep, merge or retire decision for each page
• a redirect map in a spreadsheet, and the redirects set up on your server
• a new design and site structure
• rewritten service pages and carried-over or rewritten projects
• a new quote request form and enquiry notice
• launch checks on every redirected address
• a written handover and the redirect map to keep

What the move needs from you

• access to the current site and its hosting
• Search Console access, if you have it
• a list of anything on the old site you particularly want to keep
• updated photos and notes for recent projects

Outside the redesign

We do not migrate email accounts, rebuild booking systems or move domains between registrars, though we can advise on those steps. Hosting and domain costs stay with you.