A Website Redesign Shouldn't Cost You Traffic
Refreshing your website can feel like a significant step forward, whether you’re rebranding, updating your visuals to feel more modern, improving functionality, or enhancing the user experience.
A well-executed redesign can elevate your brand, create a stronger first impression, and help you better connect with your audience.
But here’s the part many business owners don’t see coming: if your redesign doesn’t fully account for search engine optimization (SEO), it could unintentionally sabotage your search engine rankings, and your traffic along with it.
We’ve worked with dozens of clients who invested thousands into a sleek new website, only to see a sharp drop in visibility on Google search, fewer organic leads, and a sudden dip in conversions.
Their new site may have looked better, but the performance metrics told a different story. What happened? They unknowingly traded clarity for creativity and rankings for rebranding.
This is a pretty common mistake that well-meaning business owners make! Some web design agencies focus solely on aesthetics—clean lines, beautiful imagery, and flashy animations—without considering how search engines understand and evaluate a site.
When elements like site structure, URL hierarchy, meta tags, content depth, page speed, and mobile performance are overlooked during the design process, the result is a site that might look fantastic but struggles to rank, or worse, completely drops off the search engine results pages (SERPs).
At Fox & Owl Marketing, we specialize in building and optimizing SEO-friendly web design that doesn’t force you to choose between beauty and performance.
Our approach blends thoughtful web development, high-quality content marketing, and deep technical SEO, ensuring your site is visually impressive, functionally sound, and fully optimized for search engines and users alike.
In this post, we’ll explain exactly why changing your website structure, deleting key website content, or ignoring the fundamentals of SEO during a redesign can damage your online visibility. We’ll also show you how to spot these issues and what to do if you’re already seeing a post-launch traffic drop.
Whether you’re planning a redesign, working with a web developer, or recovering from a project that went sideways, this guide will help you understand the critical connection between website design and SEO, and how to ensure your site supports long-term growth, visibility, and rankings.
Learn more about the benefits SEO can have on businesses by reading our blog, “The Benefits of SEO for Businesses (And How to Know If It’s Right for You)“
How Website Design and SEO Work Together
The best-performing websites in today’s digital landscape don’t just look good—they’re designed to be found, crawled, and ranked by search engines.
Yet, many businesses make the critical mistake of separating SEO and web design into two unrelated projects. In reality, these two functions must work together seamlessly if you want your site to perform well in the long term.
While your web design team might focus on visuals like layout, typography, color schemes, and brand identity, search engines operate on a different set of rules.
Google’s search engine bots don’t care how elegant your site looks; they evaluate it based on structure, performance, and clarity.
They analyze how your website structure is organized behind the scenes, determine whether your content marketing contains relevant keywords, and assess how easily users and crawlers can find and navigate your most important pages.
If those foundational SEO signals are weak or missing, your site will struggle to rank, regardless of how beautiful the design may be.
We often see businesses invest in stunning websites that fail to attract traffic simply because they weren’t built with SEO in mind. If your design choices don’t support how search engines understand your site, you’re unintentionally limiting your reach.
It’s like building a gorgeous storefront in the middle of the desert—no signs, no roads, and no one knows how to get there.
That’s where Fox & Owl Marketing comes in. Our approach brings both sides of the equation together. From day one, our web designers and in-house SEO team collaborate to create a site that looks exceptional and is fully prepared to perform in Google search.
Every page is crafted with clarity, structure, and user intent in mind, making it easier for search engines to crawl and index your content and for your audience to find exactly what they’re looking for.
Whether you’re building a brand-new site or preparing for a full-scale redesign, we prioritize both humans and algorithms.
You shouldn’t have to choose between a beautiful site and a high-performing one, and with the right strategy, you don’t have to. At Fox & Owl, we help you achieve both through SEO website design built for growth.
Common Website Redesign Mistakes That Destroy SEO
A website redesign can breathe new life into your brand, but if you’re not careful, it can also wipe out months (or years) of hard-earned search engine optimization gains.
We have helped many businesses recover from costly redesign missteps. The good news is that these SEO-damaging mistakes can be 100% avoidable, if you know what to look for.
Here are three of the most common website design and SEO mistakes we see during redesign projects:
1. Deleting High-Value Content That Search Engines Rely On
One of the most common mistakes we encounter is accidentally deleting high-value content that search engines rely on to understand your site’s authority, structure, and relevance.
In the pursuit of a cleaner, more minimalist aesthetic, businesses often strip away large portions of on-page content without realizing that they’re also removing the very copy that helps them rank.
In some cases, the homepage is reduced to just a single headline and a call-to-action button. Long-form service pages are condensed to vague marketing blurbs. And entire blog archives are unpublished because they “look outdated.” While these changes may satisfy a design brief, they can significantly harm your ability to appear on search engine results pages (SERPs).
Search engines like Google use website content to determine which keywords your site should rank for and how relevant your web pages are to a user’s search query.
When you delete that content, you’re essentially cutting off the signals that tell search engines what your site is about, and that’s when rankings start to drop.
That’s why, before we touch a single line of code or redesign a page, we start every project at Fox & Owl with a full content audit. Our team identifies which pages are ranking, which ones bring in organic website traffic, and which pieces of content support your most important keywords.
We help you protect your existing visibility by preserving the high-performing assets—and improving them where needed—so your redesign strengthens your site instead of weakening it.
If you’ve recently undergone a redesign and noticed a drop in visibility or are planning on a redesign soon, understanding the risk of deleting valuable content is step one.
Working with a team that balances website design and SEO is the next step to ensuring your brand doesn’t lose momentum.
2. Skipping 301 Redirects When Changing URL Structures
Changing your website’s URLs without properly redirecting them is one of the most damaging and, unfortunately, one of the most overlooked mistakes in any web design and SEO project.
During a redesign, it’s common for pages to be renamed, restructured, or even consolidated—but when those changes aren’t supported with 301 redirects, they send a confusing message to search engines and users alike.
A 301 redirect is a permanent signal that tells search engines and browsers, “This page has moved—go here instead.” Without it, Google assumes the old page is gone for good, and any value it once held—its search engine rankings, backlinks, and organic traffic—is essentially erased.
We’ve worked with clients who unknowingly removed dozens of URLs during a redesign without redirecting them, only to discover that their traffic had collapsed.
Pages that were once generating inbound traffic from high-quality backlinks suddenly returned 404 errors. Internal links across the site led to dead ends, damaging both user experience and crawlability. Search engines couldn’t follow the updated site structure. As a result, visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) took a serious hit.
At Fox & Owl Marketing, we take a proactive approach to preserving your website’s equity. Before a new site goes live, our SEO team creates a complete URL redirect map.
We track every existing page and determine where it should point in the redesigned version of your site, ensuring that all authority is carried forward and that no essential web pages are lost in transition. This protects your rankings and gives search engines the clarity they need to reindex your site quickly and correctly.
Redirects aren’t just a technical detail—they’re essential to protecting the SEO you’ve already paid for.
3. Slowing Down Your Site with Design Elements That Hurt Page Speed
Your site might be stunning, but if it’s slow, it won’t perform.
One of the most common side effects of a modern website redesign is a noticeable slowdown in page speed, especially when the focus is entirely on visuals.
Designers often incorporate large image files, video backgrounds, and animation-heavy elements to create an engaging look and feel. But these design choices, while beautiful, can dramatically increase load times—particularly on mobile devices, where users expect instant access.
In today’s SEO landscape, site speed is more than a convenience; it’s a confirmed ranking factor. Google prioritizes fast, user-friendly experiences in its algorithm. If your site takes too long to load, visitors bounce. When bounce rates increase, search engine rankings tend to go down.
At Fox & Owl, we build every website with performance in mind. That means compressing images and media assets to reduce strain on your server, optimizing how scripts load so your pages display quickly, even with rich visuals, and ensuring your mobile version runs smoothly across devices using best practices in responsive design.
We also test your new site using industry-standard SEO tools to ensure its competitiveness before launch. In an age where visitors expect speed and Google demands it, performance can’t be an afterthought.
Many businesses focus solely on visuals during a redesign. However, neglecting SEO foundations like preserving content, maintaining proper URL structure, and ensuring technical performance can cost you dearly. Deleting ranking content, skipping redirects, and slowing down your mobile users’ experience are three of the most avoidable yet common errors we see.
If your site has already launched and you’re noticing a decline in performance—or if you’re planning a redesign and want to avoid these missteps entirely—Fox & Owl Marketing is here to help. We specialize in technical SEO, content preservation, site audits, and SEO-first web development that looks good and grows your business.
Redesigns shouldn’t cost you rankings. With the right strategy, they should amplify them.
The SEO Impact of Ignoring Technical Foundations
When it comes to website design and SEO, visuals and content are not the only things that matter—technical SEO is the backbone that holds everything together.
Many business owners and even some web designers focus only on the aesthetic layers of a site: layout, fonts, color schemes, and branding. But under the hood, your site’s technical foundation helps search engines crawl, index, and rank your website pages effectively.
When that foundation is flawed, your rankings and visibility suffer.
Here’s what can go wrong when technical SEO is ignored:
Missing or poorly written meta tags:
Search engines cannot properly index your content without accurate meta tags and title tags. Worse, your search engine results pages (SERPs) listings won’t entice users to click, affecting your website traffic.
Broken internal links:
These damage both the user experience and crawlability. Search engine bots rely on internal linking to discover your site’s content, understand hierarchy, and pass ranking signals between pages.
Improper or missing structured data (schema markup):
Structured data helps search engines understand the context of your content. Without it, you’re missing out on enhanced visibility in Google search results, like rich snippets, review stars, or FAQs.
Lack of accessibility:
Sites that aren’t optimized for screen readers, mobile usability, or responsive design alienate users and may be penalized in rankings. Accessibility is not just good design—it’s a ranking factor.
How Fox & Owl Helps:
Our technical SEO team collaborates with web developers and web designers from the start. We ensure that every website we build or optimize includes:
- Clean, crawlable site structure
- Accurate and engaging title tags, meta descriptions, and structured data
- Smart internal link architecture
- Fully accessible pages optimized for both users and search engines
- Fast load times, mobile-friendly responsiveness, and compliance with Google algorithm best practices
We use tools like Google Search Console, schema validators, and SEO tools to audit, track, and maintain these elements across every site we manage.
Because no matter how great your design looks, if the technical foundation is broken, your SEO strategy will never reach its full potential.
What To Do If Your Rankings Dropped After a Redesign
You’ve launched your new website. It looks beautiful and is mobile responsive, and you’re proud to share it. But then the worst happens: your search engine rankings start to slip, your website traffic drops, and fewer leads come in.
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone.
At Fox & Owl Marketing, we frequently work with businesses that come to us after a redesign, confused about why their traffic plummeted and unsure how to fix it. The truth? Even small changes to your site’s design, content, or structure can create big problems if search engine optimization (SEO) isn’t part of the strategy.
But don’t worry—there are ways to recover.
Step 1: Identify the Damage Using SEO Tools
Compare your search engine results before and after the redesign using tools like Google Search Console, Ahrefs, or SEMRush.
Look for:
- Drops in search queries or impressions
- Broken internal links or crawl errors
- Pages with missing or rewritten content
- Disappearing backlinks due to broken URLs
At Fox & Owl, our technical SEO team runs comprehensive audits to uncover precisely what changed, from missing title tags and meta descriptions to broken structured data or slow site speed.
Step 2: Restore What Was Working
If you deleted key web pages, reduced copy, or removed keyword-optimized sections, it’s time to rebuild them strategically.
We recommend:
- Reviewing high-quality content that performed well previously
- Reinstating any user-generated content, FAQs, or blog posts that brought organic traffic
- Re-adding internal links between important pages
When we work with clients, we use keyword research tools to determine which relevant keywords need to be re-targeted, and which website content needs to be restored or improved.
Step 3: Implement Technical Fixes
Often, traffic drops are the result of overlooked back-end changes. Our team looks for and corrects:
- Missing or incorrect 301 redirects
- Slow page speed and unoptimized media
- Poor mobile version performance
- Incomplete or missing schema markup
- Damaged URL structure and broken internal links
These issues can disrupt how search engines understand your website, and must be fixed quickly to stabilize rankings.
Step 4: Rebuild with SEO in Mind
Once we’ve cleaned up the problems, we develop a recovery-focused SEO strategy:
- Rewriting on-page SEO elements for clarity and relevance
- Optimizing the site structure for easier crawling
- Adding seo optimized copy, CTAs, and internal navigation
- Submitting updated sitemaps to Google
- Monitoring progress weekly in Google Search Console
How Fox & Owl Helps You Bounce Back
We specialize in SEO website design recovery, whether you’re three days or three months post-launch. Our SEO team works alongside our web developers and content experts to restore traffic, rebuild authority, and give your site the best possible foundation moving forward.
We’ll also help you avoid future pitfalls by designing with SEO and web design aligned from the start.
How Fox & Owl Builds SEO-Friendly Websites That Actually Rank
At Fox & Owl Marketing, we believe your website should be more than just a digital business card—it should be a growth engine. That’s why we don’t just “make pretty websites”—we specialize in SEO website design that helps you get found, get clicked, and get results.
When you work with our team, you’re not hiring separate web designers and SEO consultants who rarely speak to each other. You’re getting a unified team that blends web development, branding, content marketing, and technical SEO into one streamlined, search-optimized process.
Here’s how we do it:
We Design for Both Search Engines and People
Our goal is to create seo friendly websites that are visually compelling and strategically structured for search engines.
We build every site with a clean, crawlable structure, proper use of title tags, meta descriptions, schema markup, clear, logical URL structures, intuitive navigation, and innovative use of internal links.
This helps search engine bots and real website visitors easily understand your site’s purpose and take action.
We Build for Speed and Mobile
Slow load times, poor mobile version performance, and inaccessible content all hurt your search engine rankings and your ability to convert visitors into leads. That’s why Fox & Owl Marketing takes a holistic approach to performance and accessibility.
We optimize all media files to support fast site speed, ensuring your pages load quickly across devices. Our responsive design process ensures your website functions seamlessly on all mobile devices, not just desktops.
We Optimize the Content and Structure From Day One
We don’t leave content as an afterthought. Instead, we:
- Perform keyword research tailored to your niche and goals
- Create or refine high-quality content that targets relevant keywords
- Build web pages around both user intent and search engine optimization
The result? A website that brings you leads, not just compliments.
We Make It Scalable for Growth
Many of our clients are growing businesses—they need a site that can evolve. That’s why our builds are designed for long-term success:
- Built-in flexibility for content marketing
- Easy integrations for lead generation and CRM tools
- A scalable website structure that can grow as your business does
We help you make the most of your marketing budget by building an SEO-ready platform from day one and built to evolve with you.
Whether you’ve already launched a redesign or are starting from scratch, Fox & Owl Marketing is your website design and SEO partner. We don’t just fix SEO—we build with it in mind, helping you rise in the search engine results pages, attract website visitors, and grow your business organically.
Good Design Should Grow Your Business, Not Hurt It
Your website is often the first impression potential clients get of your brand, but a great first impression doesn’t matter if no one finds your site.
When website design and SEO work together, the results are powerful: improved visibility in Google search, better user experience, higher website traffic, and more conversions.
However, when SEO is ignored during the redesign process, even the most beautiful site can lose its position in the search engine results pages, damaging its growth and draining your marketing budget.
At Fox & Owl Marketing, we specialize in building and rebuilding websites that balance form and function. Whether you’ve recently launched a redesign and seen a dip in rankings, or you’re planning ahead to ensure a smooth, SEO-friendly launch, we’re here to help.
We combine web development, technical SEO, and content strategy seamlessly.
We audit your current site’s content, structure, and performance to preserve what’s working.
We help search engines understand your site while making it irresistible to visitors.
Want expert eyes on your site before or after a redesign? Let’s protect your SEO investment.
Don't let your next redesign cost you visibility.
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