Evidence on this page last checked on 7 November 2026.
Most redesigns are sold on how the site looks. Most ranking losses happen in the same project, at the URL map, when the new site goes live with old addresses pointing nowhere and no one checking Search Console. The two are not in conflict: a site can look like a design studio built it and still carry one H1, a unique title, structured data and a redirect for every page it replaced.
I have worked in SEO for 14+ years with founders and marketing leads in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, UAE and India. The most recent build on this page is a brand studio's move from Wix to a 44-page WordPress site, live on 2 November 2026 with 47 old URLs redirected and nothing broken. The numbers below are from that project, dated, with the parts that did not go to plan included.
Who needs this, and who doesn't?
You need it when the platform, not the content, is the ceiling: a site builder that limits schema, crawl rules or URL control, a portfolio that is a gallery rather than pages Google can read, or a redesign planned by a design team with no one owning the redirects. You don't need it if your WordPress site is already clean and only the content is weak.
A good fit if
- You are on Wix, Squarespace or Webflow and need to rank in more than one country, control schema and crawl directives, or add pages without paying per change.
- Your site looks good and says little: image galleries where case studies should be, one page per service with no depth, a blog that stopped.
- A redesign is already planned and nobody has crawled the current URLs or written the redirect map.
- You are leaving an SEO vendor whose reports showed activity while Search Console showed nothing, and want the foundation fixed before paying for more marketing.
Not the right service if
- Your site is already on WordPress with a clean structure. Fix the content and the authority instead: SEO consulting covers it.
- You need a web application, a marketplace or a large e-commerce build. Shopify stores stay on Shopify; I will say so on the call.
- You need enquiries within 30 days. A rebuild takes weeks and organic search takes months; paid ads are the faster lever.
- You want a visual refresh with no change to structure, URLs or copy. That is a design job, and I will recommend a designer rather than take it on.
What does a website build or migration include?
Six workstreams, in the order they happen: a crawl and page map, the redirect map, the design and build on a private staging site, the technical SEO foundation, the AI-search layer, and the migration with a 30-day watch. The build is quoted as a fixed fee from the page map, so the scope is written down before any work starts.
Crawl and page map
Every live URL is crawled first: status, title, description, headings and which pages have earned anything in Search Console. From that comes a page map grouped by the job each page does, with the title, description, H1 and internal links written for every page before it is built. For The 8th Archer, 19 pages and 11 galleries became a 44-page map with eight service pages and a six-page market-entry cluster.
Redirect map, built on day one
Each old URL is mapped to its new page in a single hop and imported before the pages are built, so every internal link already resolves and a wrong slug is caught in week one. Addresses that only ever carried spam links get a deliberate 410 instead of a redirect: 24 of them on the last build, so a link farm profile did not follow the brand to its new site.
Design and build on staging
Built on a private staging address while the live site keeps running. The theme is a starting structure, not the finished product: typography, colour, spacing and the case study and service templates are rebuilt to your identity, with contrast checked rather than guessed. Your designer reviews at three approval gates, one consolidated list per round.
Technical SEO foundation
One canonical host with the www and http variants redirecting to it. Exactly one H1 and a unique title and description on every page. Organization, WebPage, BreadcrumbList and Article schema. An XML sitemap with the template post types excluded. Self-hosted fonts, image originals protected from automatic recompression, caching, security headers, XML-RPC off, login rate limiting, analytics with your own traffic excluded.
AI-search (GEO) layer
An llms.txt file describing the business, services and markets. AI crawlers such as GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot explicitly allowed. Page templates with an answer-first opening and short question-and-answer blocks that ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity can quote. The same templates are what the GEO programme builds on later.
Migration, DNS and the 30-day watch
Database and files moved to hosting in your name, URLs replaced across every table, mail records copied before the nameservers change so email never breaks, a fresh backup, then the switch. After DNS: every URL re-checked on the live domain, indexing switched on, sitemap submitted, redirects watched in Search Console for 30 days. Every login is handed over in your name.
Wix, Squarespace, Webflow or WordPress: when to move?
Site builders are fine for a brochure site in one city. Move when you need country-specific pages, full control of schema and crawl rules, case studies you can add yourself, or integrations the builder charges for. Stay if the site is small, ranks for what it needs to, and nobody plans to grow it. The platform is the ceiling only once you push against it.
| Asset | What happens | How it is checked |
|---|---|---|
| URLs | Every live address crawled and mapped to a new page; never-existent spam targets return 410 | Each old URL requested on staging and again on the live domain: one hop, correct target |
| Titles and descriptions | Kept where they earned rankings, rewritten where they were city-only or missing | Crawl of every launched URL: one title, one description, one H1 |
| Blog posts | Migrated with original publish dates, cover images and internal links rewritten; dropped posts redirect to the service page on the same topic and are kept as drafts | Search Console check on any dropped post that earned traffic |
| Images | Oversized uploads resized; originals protected from automatic recompression by the cache plugin | Page-by-page browser check for broken or empty images |
| Forms and leads | Rebuilt to deliver to your own mailbox with a clean sender; enquiry source captured | Test enquiry sent and received before launch |
| Domain and email | MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC records copied before nameservers change; only web records move | Test email after the switch |
| Analytics and Search Console | GA4 installed with your own traffic excluded; sitemap submitted; old property kept | Events verified in a headless browser; sitemap status in Search Console |
If you are changing SEO vendors at the same time, get Owner access to Search Console and Analytics before the old contract ends. Their history makes the "which pages earned traffic" decisions faster.
What does a finished build look like?
The 8th Archer, a brand strategy studio with offices in Mumbai and Seoul, moved from Wix to WordPress between 14 September and 2 November 2026: 44 pages planned, 41 live at launch, 47 old URLs redirected in one hop, 24 spam-link targets returned as 410, and a page-by-page QA pass with zero failed requests. Their enquiry came through a ChatGPT referral.
| Layer | Wix, September 2026 | WordPress, November 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Pages | 19 content pages and 11 image galleries, all written for one city | 44-page map; 41 live at launch; 11 case studies written as briefs and outcomes |
| Canonical host | Three hosts indexed separately | One host; www and http redirect to it |
| Redirects | None | 72 rules; 47 old URLs one hop; 24 never-existent addresses return 410 |
| Metadata | City-only title; 13 pages with no description | 45 unique titles and descriptions; one H1 on all 41 URLs |
| Structured data | None | Organization, WebSite, WebPage, BreadcrumbList, BlogPosting |
| AI search | Nothing | llms.txt; AI crawlers allowed; answer-first templates |
| Fonts and QA | Platform-served | 0 requests to Google Fonts; 41 pages at 390 px and 1440 px with 0 failed requests, 0 JS errors |
| Search Console baseline | 53 clicks in Aug to Oct 2026, almost all brand | Recorded as Day 0; SEO and GEO programme from 9 Nov 2026 |
Read the full Wix to WordPress case study: the audit, the timeline, the DNS cutover that had a bad day, and the baseline the SEO programme starts from.
What did not go to plan, on that build. Fifteen working days of build effort ran across seven calendar weeks because the content arrived in stages. The DNS cutover briefly served the wrong site and reset the client's mail records; both were caught from the live headers and fixed the same day. Both lessons are now in the runbook: a hard content deadline, and mail records copied before any nameserver change.
How does a build run?
Four stages. The audit and page map come first and produce the fixed-fee quote. The build happens on staging with three approval gates. QA covers every page at phone and desktop widths. Then DNS, and 30 days of watching redirects and indexing. The optional SEO and GEO retainer starts after sign-off and is priced separately.
Audit and page map
Crawl of every live URL, Search Console review where access exists, a page map with the title, description, H1 and links for every page, and the redirect map. This stage produces the fixed-fee quote and the build sheet both sides sign off.
Build on staging
Theme, design system and templates first, then the pages in groups. Redirects imported on day one so every internal link resolves as it is written. Your designer reviews the homepage, the inner templates and the finished site at three gates.
QA and sign-off
Every page crawled for titles, descriptions, H1s, schema and broken links, then opened in a browser at 390 px and 1440 px for failed requests, script errors, broken images and sideways scroll. A test enquiry sent through the form. You sign off on a private review link.
Switch and watch
Mail records copied, backup taken, DNS switched, every old URL re-checked on the live domain, indexing on, sitemap submitted. Redirects and coverage watched in Search Console for 30 days. Every login handed over in your name; maintenance is optional and month to month.
How is a website build priced?
As a fixed fee, scoped from the page map: the number of pages, the templates they need, how much content exists already, and whether a migration is involved. Half on acceptance, half before go-live. The SEO and GEO retainer is quoted separately with its own minimum term, so the site is never held hostage to the marketing contract. There is no price list; see how pricing works.
Website design, development and migration FAQs
Move if you need to rank in more than one country, control schema and crawl rules, add case studies without paying per change, or integrate a CRM later. Wix is fine for a small brochure site that already ranks for what it needs. On the last migration I ran, the founder's own verdict after a year on Wix was that staying was doing more harm than good; the audit, not the platform's reputation, is what should decide it.
A 40 to 50 page site is scoped as about 15 working days of build with three approval gates, from the day the content and the advance are both in. Calendar time is usually longer: on the latest build the content arrived in stages and the calendar ran seven weeks. The technical migration itself, moving the finished site to your hosting and switching DNS, takes under a day. Content readiness is the only part of the schedule I cannot control.
Not if every old URL is mapped before DNS changes. I crawl every live address first, redirect each one to its new page in a single hop, keep the titles that earned rankings, and test the map on staging and again on the live domain. Addresses that only ever carried spam links get a deliberate 410 so that profile does not follow you. On the last build, all 47 live URLs resolved in one hop on launch day.
It is quoted as a fixed fee from the page map: how many pages, which templates, how much content exists, and whether a migration is involved. Half is paid on acceptance and half before go-live. The SEO and GEO retainer that usually follows is quoted separately with its own minimum term, so you are never locked into one to get the other. Send your current URL and I will come back with a scoped quote and a redirect-map estimate.
Usually on a theme chosen with you, which then gets rebuilt to your identity: typography, colour, spacing and the case study and service templates. A good theme saves weeks on layout; what makes the site yours is the design system applied to it and the structure underneath. Your own designer can review at each approval gate, as the brand studio on my latest build did, and contrast is checked against the numbers, not taste.
You do. Hosting and the domain are bought in your name, the site is built or migrated into your account, and every login (WordPress admin, hosting, analytics, Search Console) is handed over at sign-off with passwords rotated. Maintenance is optional and month to month. If you ever move to another consultant, nothing on the site depends on me.