An agency site often carries years of layered pages: old services, retired team members, work you no longer want to show. A redesign is a chance to tell a sharper story, but the same pages that embarrass you may be the ones a few buyers still find. Audit first, then change.
Audit before you touch
Pull the last year of inquiries and note how each buyer found you and what they asked for. Check which pages are linked from elsewhere: partner directories, old proposals, email signatures and social profiles. Those addresses must keep working.
List your services as the site describes them and compare to what you actually want to sell now. The gap between those two lists is your rewrite brief.
Keep, rewrite or retire
- ✓Keep — pages that bring inquiries and pages other sites link to
- ✓Rewrite — service lists without scope, vague about pages, generic process claims
- ✓Retire — services you no longer sell, outdated team pages, work that is under NDA
- ✓Add — a partner page, a short fit and not-fit section, a qualifying inquiry form
Sharpen scope, process and inquiry path
Rewrite each service with a typical engagement size, what is included and what is not. Add a process outline in plain steps and a quality check description. Make sure nothing implies a result you cannot promise.
Rework the inquiry form to ask the questions you always ask first, and state when a reply will come. Send a test inquiry on a mobile screen and confirm it reaches the right person.
Before launch
- ✓Old addresses mapped — partner links and proposals still land
- ✓Confidentiality reviewed — no client details exposed
- ✓Inquiry tested — arrives, confirms and replies
- ✓Team and service pages current
- ✓Backup of the old site — saved before switching
Review after launch
Check inquiry quality, not only quantity: are they closer to your target scope? Review after a couple of months and adjust. A tighter site often reduces unsuitable inquiries, which is as valuable as more of them. No ranking or lead outcome is promised.
Re-check every old portfolio piece
Portfolio pages age faster than anything else on an agency site. A client may have rebranded, moved to another vendor or asked to stop being shown. Before migrating any piece, confirm you still have permission to display it, that the live site it links to still reflects your work, and that screenshots do not show a former client’s customers, staff names or internal data.
Pieces that pass come across with fresh three-line summaries. Pieces that fail are either anonymized or dropped. It is better to launch with four strong examples than with twelve you would hesitate to discuss on a call.
Redirect worksheet columns
- ✓Old address — copied exactly from the current site or a crawl
- ✓Where it is linked from — directory, proposal template, signature or profile
- ✓New destination — the closest matching page on the new site
- ✓Status after launch — tested and landing correctly, or flagged for a fix
Tell the people who send you work
Partner agencies, referral sources and freelancers you collaborate with often have your old pages bookmarked or saved in their own proposal templates. After launch, send a short note: what changed, the new address for your partner page and the inquiry route you now prefer. Update your own email signature, social profiles and any directory listings the same week so every path a buyer follows points to the new story.
What to expect, honestly
- ✓We rebuild on our hosting — no editing inside your old system
- ✓Partner pricing remains inquiry-only — no public figures
- ✓Old content only if supplied — no recovery promise
One example of what your site could look like
This is one sample we designed. Yours is built around your business, your photos and your words, and we have more examples if you want to compare directions.
How it works
1. Consultation
We learn your services, customers and goals, in English or Spanish.
2. We write and design
We draft the words and build the site around your business.
3. 10 revision rounds
You review and request changes until it is right.
4. Launch and care
We launch, then Website Care keeps it hosted, backed up, checked weekly and A/B tested.
Keep reading
Redesign without losing traffic · Website redesign · White-label websites · Website mistakes to avoid
