A rebrand is exciting. Thinking about a new look, feel, colour palette, design and even brand name will get ideas flowing. It’s a time to innovate and be creative.
Your excitement can dip somewhat when reality bites in the shape of a website migration. It’s an important, yet less creative aspect of a rebrand. But it deserves careful thought and headspace.
A website migration can be one of the fastest ways to accidentally lose the visibility you’ve spent years building. Rankings can drop, key pages can vanish and redirects can get missed. Overnight, neither your customers nor Google can find what they’re after.
How can you make sure a website migration goes smoothly? We spoke to experienced agency owners for their professional opinions. These agencies handle smooth rebrands all the time and have learnt from experience.
Here, we’ve put together a practical checklist you can use to plan and navigate a rebrand and website migration.
Getting started
As Margaux Marshall, Owner and Founder of MGX Digital explains, “Website migration isn’t just a technical process. It’s a strategic business decision that impacts multiple areas of your organisation. A successful migration requires careful planning, clear objectives and collaboration between key stakeholders.”
Migration problems often start with the seemingly innocent viewpoint that you’re simply refreshing the brand. That simple refresh can still mean major website changes: design, UX, navigation, messaging, content updates, URL changes, domain changes, CMS changes… the list goes on. Every one of those changes multiplies risk.
How to mitigate those risks? Careful planning and preparation before you change a thing.
Lesson 1: Plan for success
Be very specific about what’s included in the rebrand. What is changing exactly? For example:
- Brand/ domain name
- Site structure/ navigation
- URLs
- Page content
- CMS
Look at your current web content to determine what’s working best. Which are your top performing pages and highest ranking keywords? Audit what matters and prepare every URL to be mapped to the future site. It may seem tedious and time-consuming, but this preparatory work is where migrations are won.
Lance Corrigan of Bespoke Brands says, “One thing we’ve learned from website migrations is the importance of comprehensive URL mapping and redirects. Even a small oversight in redirect strategy can cause serious traffic drops, damaging SEO and user experience.”
Lesson 2: Collaborate with the right people
Bringing together the right people to collaborate on the project is vital. There are many moving parts to a website migration. It’s important that each aspect is owned by the best equipped people – technical, creative and strategic. Margaux believes that the SEO team plays a fundamental role in this process.
“Developers know how to code, but it’s SEO professionals that know what search engines need and can bridge that gap. So the SEO team becomes the link between the rebrand/marketing and technical teams,” advises Margaux Marshall.
The importance of an experienced, dedicated team to manage a migration is echoed by other agency owners.
Michelle Noel, Strategy Director of Brand Design Agency, Studio Noel emphasises this point. She says, “Having a trusted partner focused solely on website migration really matters. Someone whose job is to think through the details, anticipate what might be missed, and make sure everything is in place before launch day.”
Similarly, Lee Newham, Partner at Designed by Good People says, “The best people to manage that [website change] are a dedicated team that work exclusively on that.”
Lesson 3: Communication is key
Another important part of your planning process is deciding what you decide to tell which people and when. That includes your internal teams and your external audience of customers and potential customers.
Start by bringing your teams on board, helping them to understand what’s happening and why. When they understand your vision, they can explain it to others and contribute to achieving that goal.
Then comes the external communication plan. Simon Neale of Poet advises, “If there is to be a complete rebrand, then the process of keeping people informed should start long before the new name is announced, so that you can bring existing customers with you through the transition.”
Internally, ongoing clear communication between teams makes a positive difference to the outcome.
Peter Amedome speaks from experience, saying, “I’ve learned how vital working closely with developers, content teams, and SEO specialists was essential. When communication broke down during one project… we missed redirecting some key pages, which caused a significant drop in traffic.”
Lesson 4: Define brand guidelines
A clear and detailed playbook will bring your rebrand to life. But, make sure your new guidelines are realistic. Check they actually work in practice. Again, bring in the right people – your key players – to collaborate on these points.
“We normally create stylesheets or guidelines for websites. Sites are all about content and constantly change. They have to be adaptable and responsive,” shares Lee Newham.
Lesson 5: Be strategic with your changes
You don’t have to change everything when you rebrand. Yes, messaging needs to match the new brand and its tone of voice. But if a page is ranking and converting, treat it with respect. Don’t fix what’s already winning.
Margaux explains, “Decisions like a URL change or changing the content as well as the rebrand can have a big effect on traffic. I recommend not changing everything at the same time (design and content). That’ll make it a smoother and quicker process. Content changes can really increase the length of the project and cause fluctuation on launch.”
Lesson 6: Check and check again
Lesson one (planning) is the cornerstone to the entire project. That preparatory planning and mapping must be checked and checked again before you launch your new website. It’s so much better to pick up errors in preview.
Margaux reiterates this saying, “Careful redirect mapping and ensuring the new site has no technical issues is crucial before launch.”
Peter recalls a particular project where this was a game-changer. He explains, “By double and triple checking all redirect rules, we were able to keep almost all our organic traffic and search rankings after the migration.”
That’s the goal.
Lesson 7: Keep checking after launch
Launching the new website is a significant moment, but the project doesn’t end there. You must continue to check its performance. That’s how you’ll pick up on errors or obstacles to the user experience.
Michelle advocates this. She points out, “Careful planning, clean redirects, and close monitoring after launch help ensure the new brand lands smoothly. Not just technically, but emotionally too, with trust intact and momentum moving forward.”
Your simple migration checklist
People: a dedicated team with clear ownership
Planning: map URLs and redirects before anything moves
Performance: protect what’s already working
Perseverance: check, double check, triple check
Proper redirects: no dead ends, relevant destinations
Prepare for launch: thorough testing on staging and at go-live
Performance monitoring: fix issues fast, before they deter customers.
And finally, a friction-free website launch
When migrations go well, the transition is smooth. Customers land where they expect, Google understands the change and the rebrand feels confident rather than chaotic.
The best migration teams will foresee issues and fix them before they arise. Their preparation will pay dividends and pave the way for a well-executed launch.
As Michelle Noel puts it, “A well-managed migration protects more than the site itself. It safeguards visibility, traffic, and access for audiences, while also protecting the client relationship. When risks are anticipated and managed quietly in the background, clients feel supported, confident, and reassured that the thinking extends beyond the rebrand itself.”
If you need expert guidance on your migration, our experienced SEO team is here to help.