Why a redesign quietly costs you enquiries
Most Hong Kong SME owners decide to rebuild their website for good reasons: the design looks dated, the mobile layout is clumsy, or nobody can update the content without emailing the agency. What rarely gets discussed at the kick-off meeting is what happens to the pages that already bring in customers. A rebuild that changes page addresses without a plan is the fastest way to lose the enquiries you spent years earning.
This is not a technical problem reserved for large companies. If your site has twenty pages and half of them bring in a handful of enquiries a month, those pages are assets. Treat them like stock in a warehouse: you would not move premises and leave the stock behind.
Step one: build a list before anyone touches the design
Before a single template is chosen, export a full list of your existing web addresses. You can do this in three ways:
- Ask your current host or agency for a sitemap file (usually
sitemap.xml). - Use a free crawler tool to list every page it can reach from your homepage.
- Open your analytics account and export the pages that received traffic in the last twelve months.
Combine all three into one spreadsheet. Add two columns: the page's purpose, and whether it currently receives enquiries. This is the document you will hand to the new developer, and it is the single most useful thing you can prepare.
Do not forget the pages nobody links to
Old service pages, campaign landing pages and blog posts often sit outside the main menu but still rank and still convert. They will not appear in a crawl from the homepage if nothing links to them. Check your analytics for entry pages, not just popular pages.
Step two: decide keep, merge or retire
Every address on your list needs a decision, and the decision should be written down. There are only three options:
- Keep. The page stays, with the same address and the same core content, even if the design changes around it.
- Merge. Two thin pages become one stronger page. The old addresses must point to the new one.
- Retire. The page genuinely no longer serves a purpose. It should still point somewhere sensible rather than show an error.
The temptation is to retire aggressively because a shorter site feels cleaner. Resist it for any page that brings in enquiries. A tidy site with fewer customers is not an improvement.
Watch the address format
Many Hong Kong sites use addresses ending in .php or containing dates and categories. If the new build uses a cleaner format, every changed address needs a permanent redirect from the old one. Ask your developer to deliver this as a file you can read, not as a verbal promise. You want to see old address on the left, new address on the right, one line each.
Step three: test the redirects before launch
A redirect list is only useful if it works. Before the new site goes live, ask for a staging environment and check a sample of at least twenty old addresses. Type each one in and confirm it lands on the right new page, not the homepage. Redirecting everything to the homepage is a common shortcut and it tells search engines nothing useful.
A redirect that dumps every old page on the homepage is not a redirect plan. It is a way of hiding the problem until traffic falls.
If your site collects enquiries through forms, test those too. A rebuild that breaks the enquiry form is worse than an ugly design, because the phone simply stops ringing in the way you are used to.
Step four: keep the old site reachable for a while
Do not delete the old hosting account on launch day. Keep it running for at least a month, ideally three, so you can compare old and new pages if something looks wrong. Take a full backup of the old site files and database, and store it somewhere your team can access without the outgoing agency.
This also protects you if the new build has a fault in week two. You can point the domain back while you fix it, rather than explaining to customers why the site is down.
Tell the people who link to you
If suppliers, partners or directories link to specific pages on your site, a short email telling them the address has changed saves you a broken link. It also keeps the relationship warm, which matters more than the link itself.
Step five: review after thirty days
Once the new site has been live for a month, compare three things against the month before launch: total enquiries, enquiries from pages that existed before, and the number of pages receiving any traffic at all. If the third number has dropped sharply, some redirects are missing. This is a fixable problem, but only if you look.
Budget for this review as part of the project, not as an optional extra. If you are still comparing quotes and want to know what a rebuild should reasonably include, our pricing page sets out how we structure a project, and you are welcome to contact us with your existing address list for a second opinion before you sign anything.
Summary
A redesign should change how your site looks, not which pages customers can find. Export your addresses first, decide keep, merge or retire for each one, insist on a written redirect list, test it on a staging site, keep the old hosting alive for a few months, and compare enquiry numbers thirty days after launch. Do these five things and the rebuild becomes an upgrade rather than a reset.