Do not rebuild the page that is carrying your business

Every website has a small number of pages producing most of the enquiries. In a redesign they are usually replaced along with everything else, because nobody had identified them.

Talk to us about your rebuild

Identify the pages producing enquiries before a rebuild and treat them as assets rather than as drafts. Keep their content, their addresses, their specific wording and their structure. If they must change, change one element at a time after launch so any drop can be traced.

The pages that earn are rarely the ones everybody discusses

Attention in a redesign goes to the homepage, because that is what people look at in meetings. The enquiries usually come from a service page or a cost page that has never been discussed at all.

Unless somebody checks, those pages are redesigned by default, along with whatever it was about them that worked.

How to find them

Look at which page a visitor was on when they submitted a form or tapped your number, over at least the past year. Add what your customers say when asked what they read before getting in touch.

Between them, you will usually find three to six pages doing the majority of the work. Those are the ones to protect.

What to preserve about them

Not just the page: the specific things that made it work, which are easy to lose in a rewrite intended to tidy the language.

  • The address, unchanged where possible.
  • The specific wording that matched what people search for.
  • The detail and length, even where it feels wordy.
  • The evidence and its placement.
  • The contact options and where they sit.
  • The internal links pointing at the page from elsewhere.

Resist tidying

The instinct in a redesign is to shorten and smooth. On a converting page this is where the damage happens: the awkward paragraph answering a specific worry, the long list of what is included, the plain sentence that matched a search exactly.

If a converting page feels untidy, that is not sufficient reason to change it. Untidy and earning beats elegant and quiet.

If you must change them, do it afterwards

Launch the new site with the converting pages as close to unchanged as the design allows. Then, once the rest has settled, change one element at a time and watch what happens.

That way a drop can be traced to a specific change rather than lost inside a hundred simultaneous ones, which is the situation most redesigns create.

Watch them closely after launch

For the first two months, check these pages specifically rather than the site as a whole. A site-wide number can look stable while your best page has quietly stopped producing.

If one of them drops, compare the old version against the new, element by element. The cause is usually something small that nobody thought worth mentioning.

How Licheo protects them

We identify the earning pages before designing anything and treat them as assets to carry across, including their addresses and their specific wording.

After launch we watch those pages individually, because problems appear there before they appear in any site-wide figure.

Part of a larger guide

This page is one part of Redesign and revenue. The other parts:

Questions people ask

How do I find which pages convert?
Look at which page visitors were on when they submitted a form or tapped your number, over at least a year, and ask recent customers what they read before contacting you.
Should converting pages be redesigned?
As little as possible during the rebuild. Launch with them close to unchanged, then alter one element at a time afterwards so any drop can be traced to a specific change.
What exactly should I preserve?
The address, the specific wording that matched searches, the detail and length even where it feels wordy, the evidence and its placement, the contact options, and the internal links pointing at the page.
The converting page is untidy. Can I clean it up?
Not as part of a rebuild. The awkward paragraph often answers a specific worry, and the plain sentence often matched a search exactly. Untidy and earning beats elegant and quiet.
What should I watch after launch?
Those pages individually, for at least two months. A site-wide figure can look stable while your best page has quietly stopped producing, and that is the loss that matters most.

Protect what already earns

Earning pages identified before design begins, carried across with their addresses and wording, and watched individually after launch.

Talk to us about your rebuild Read the full guide