Many Margate business sites were built years ago by a nephew, a freelancer who’s moved on, or a template company long gone. They still pull a trickle of traffic simply because Google has indexed them for years. That’s exactly why a careless redesign is risky.
A redesign is two jobs running at once: build the new site, and protect what the old one earned. Most agencies only do the first one, which is why so many Margate businesses see a dip in enquiries right after a relaunch – not because the new site is worse, but because nobody mapped what the old one was quietly doing right.
Before anything goes live, we crawl the existing site and record every indexed URL, every page that ranks for anything, and every backlink pointing at it. That list becomes the map for the new site. Pages that rank keep their URL or get a 301 redirect to the closest equivalent on the new build – never a blanket redirect to the homepage, which is the single most common way redesigns lose traffic overnight.
Then we rebuild the structure properly:
For Margate specifically, that speed check means loading the site on a mid-range Android phone over a 4G connection near the seafront or old town, because that’s closer to what your actual visitors are using than a developer’s laptop on office Wi-Fi. A site that feels instant in a studio can still crawl for a tourist checking opening hours on patchy signal.
We also look at how people in Margate actually search – a lot of local trade and hospitality traffic comes from mobile searches made on the move, often comparing two or three options in the same few minutes, so pages need to answer the obvious questions fast rather than burying them under a slideshow.
After launch, we watch Search Console for crawl errors and ranking drops for several weeks and fix redirect issues as they surface, not after a client notices the phone stopped ringing. Nothing goes live and gets forgotten.
Margate is dense and built out. There’s not a lot of raw population growth left to ride – the city has been mostly developed for decades – which means most of the new business that shows up here is business taken from a competitor, not business created out of nowhere. A trades company, an auto shop, or a restaurant in Margate is usually fighting for the same calls as three or four other businesses within a couple of miles, and a slow, dated site is one of the easiest ways to lose that fight before the phone even rings.
This is a value-conscious market. Margate households and the small businesses that serve them are not the ones chasing the flashiest option – they’re checking a few sites, noticing who answers fast, who looks legitimate, and who loads properly on a phone in a parking lot. That last part matters more here than it does in a lot of nearby cities, because a large share of local search in Margate’s commercial corridors – the trades, the auto repair shops, the independent restaurants and retail along routes like State Road 7 and Atlantic Boulevard – comes from mobile phones, often on the move, often with one bar of signal. A three-second delay on a bad connection is a lost call, not a patient visitor. Trust matters too: in a market with this many repeat-visible, older, family-run businesses, a site that looks current and loads fast reads as more credible than one that looks stuck in 2014, even if the business itself has been reliable for years.
We start with an audit of the site you already have, not a pitch deck. That means pulling your current rankings, your Search Console history if you have access to it, and a list of every page that’s actually bringing in traffic. We tell you what’s worth keeping before we tell you what’s worth rebuilding.
From there we map the new site structure against that data, price the work, and set a realistic timeline based on how many pages and how much content needs to move. Nothing goes live until the redirect map is tested.
Review existing pages, navigation, performance, and technical issues before deciding what needs to change.
Identify important existing URLs and match them to the most relevant pages on the redesigned site.
Redirect permanently moved URLs to appropriate replacement pages when necessary, helping users and search engines find the new destinations.
Improve usability across desktop computers, tablets, and mobile devices.
Review oversized images, unnecessary scripts, and other factors that affect loading and interaction.
Make enquiry forms, phone links, service information, and calls to action easier to find.
Review page titles, headings, internal links, indexability, canonical tags, and XML sitemaps where relevant.
Check redirects, links, forms, important content, and key user journeys before and after launch.
Cost depends on how many pages you have, how much of the old content is reusable, and whether the site needs custom functionality like booking, online ordering, or a quote form tied into your CRM. A five-page site for an independent retailer in Margate costs less to redesign than a twelve-page site for a multi-service trades company with location pages and a blog.
We won’t quote a number here that doesn’t apply to your situation – ask us for a free audit and we’ll give you a real price range based on what you have, not a generic package. We will tell you this: a redesign done with a proper migration plan generally costs more up front than a quick reskin, because the redirect mapping and the crawl audit take real hours. It’s cheaper than losing the rankings a reskin can wipe out.
After launch, we don’t disappear. Every Margate client gets call tracking so you can hear exactly which pages, keywords, and ads are generating phone calls, not just anonymous traffic numbers. You get a monthly report that lays out rankings, organic traffic, and conversions side by side, with attribution back to the specific page or campaign responsible, so you know precisely where your results are coming from.
If something breaks, a redirect fails, a page drops in rankings, or a competitor overtakes you locally, that shows up in the data fast. We catch it and fix it before it costs you a month of calls and enquiries.
Margate businesses don’t need a flashier site. They need one that loads fast on a phone, keeps the rankings the old one built, and turns seasonal footfall from the seafront and Old Town into genuine enquiries, bookings and sales year-round.
We handle the migration ourselves, running a full crawl, redirect map and metadata audit before launch, so your Margate business doesn’t lose the search rankings, backlinks or traffic you’ve already built when the new site goes live.
If your current site is slow, dated, or you’re simply not sure what it’s actually ranking for, the sensible first step is a free audit rather than a guess at a full redesign. We’ll look at how your site performs for Margate-based searches, how it behaves on mobile, where visitors drop off, and whether the structure is actually set up to turn traffic into enquiries. You’ll get a clear picture of what the site has earned you so far, what’s genuinely holding it back, and what a redesign would realistically change — not a generic checklist, but specifics tied to your business and your local market.
Send over your site address, or call (754) 704-4727, and we’ll look at it directly — no obligation, no pressure to sign up for work you don’t need.
These are the 6 questions Margate homeowners ask us most about website redesign, answered plainly so you know what to expect before any work starts. If yours isn't covered here, get in touch and we'll walk you through it.
It can, if the migration is done carelessly – the most common cause is URLs changing without redirects, or every old page getting redirected to the homepage instead of its closest match. We map every indexed URL before launch specifically to prevent that.
It depends on the number of pages, how much content needs to be rewritten, and whether custom features like booking or ordering are involved. A simple site takes less time than a multi-location trades or service site with a lot of existing content to migrate.
Not necessarily for the rankings alone, but if the site is slow on mobile or looks dated, it may be costing you conversions even where it ranks. We can audit what's working before recommending a full rebuild.
Often yes, especially for pages that already rank well. We identify what's earning traffic and keep that content intact where it makes sense, rather than rewriting everything by default.
It depends on page count, functionality, and how much of the existing site is reusable. We give a specific range after a free audit rather than a flat package price, because a five-page site and a twelve-page site aren't the same job.