Ecommerce website redesign: without losing sales or rankings

A shop redesign is higher stakes than a brochure site. Every product page is a page Google may already rank, every broken link is a lost sale, and the shop can’t close while the work is done. Here’s how to approach it. For a finished example, Dene & Dune is my own fashion ecommerce project: a filmed homepage, over a hundred photographed products and style guides written for search.

Signs your shop needs a redesign

• Lots of visitors add to basket on a phone but don’t finish checking out.
• Product pages are slow to load on mobile.
• Customers can’t filter or search the range to find what they want.
• Adding products or changing stock is a chore.
• The shop looks less trustworthy than the brands you’re competing with.

Audit before you change anything

• Export a list of every product, category and content page, with its address.
• From Search Console, note which product and category pages earn search clicks.
• From your sales data, note the best sellers and where their visitors come from.
• Walk through your own checkout on a phone and write down every point of friction.

Keep your rankings

Product and category addresses are the most valuable part of a shop’s search history. If they change, each old address needs a permanent redirect to the same product or category on the new site, not to the homepage. Keep product names, descriptions and image alt text that already rank, and improve them rather than replacing them wholesale. The full process is in how to redesign without losing your Google rankings.

What it costs and how long it takes

Ecommerce is custom functionality, so it sits in my Bespoke package, from £995, quoted once I know the size of the range, the payment and delivery set-up and what needs moving across. You’ll get a fixed quote and a date in writing before any work starts.

Keep taking orders during the build

The new shop is built separately while the old one keeps trading. Before switch-over, freeze product changes for a short window, move the latest stock and orders across, then switch in one go, ideally at your quietest time of the week. Test a real order end to end straight after launch.

Make it fast on a phone

• Serve product photos in modern formats, sized for the screen.
• Load the main product image first and everything else afterwards.
• Keep third-party scripts to the ones that earn their place.
• Keep checkout short: guest checkout, as few fields as possible, clear delivery costs up front.

Know whether it worked

Compare the four weeks after launch with the same period before: conversion rate on mobile, basket abandonment, search clicks to product pages and average order value. Watch Search Console for “not found” errors and redirect anything missed.

Thinking about redesigning your shop? Read about my ecommerce web design, see my prices, or get in touch for a fixed quote.