Redesign the experience without losing what already works

Your guide to making the right decision

What to consider before starting your project

An education website redesign should preserve the useful information and search visibility your institution has already built. We begin with the current URLs, high-value pages, documents, forms and integrations. That inventory helps distinguish content worth retaining from navigation or presentation that needs improvement.

A new template can affect many pages at once, so representative course, campus and contact journeys need testing before release. Where a URL must change, its replacement and redirect should be agreed in advance. Editors also need a practical handover so routine intake updates do not depend on the original development team.

Design around your audience

This work serves prospective learners, current families, website editors and the teams maintaining existing content. Their questions vary by decision stage, location and the information they already have. We organize the content and next steps around those differences, so people can find the right route without being pushed into an unsuitable enquiry or application.

Understand your starting point

Our initial review aims to retain institutional knowledge and search visibility during redesign. We examine an existing visitor journey with your team, including the information available, the point where a visitor takes action and the staff response. Recent questions and incomplete enquiries can help identify where a practical change is needed.

The review draws on current canonical URLs, backlinks, traffic and content owners. Your team confirms the academic and operational facts, while we identify the website, content or marketing changes within the proposed scope. Depending on the agreed scope, planning can include a redirect inventory and representative template acceptance checklist. Access requirements, dependencies and any further approvals are agreed before implementation.

Agree on scope, ownership and handover

The proposal should describe the agreed deliverables, review stages and handover. The agreed planning documents give both teams a shared basis for reviewing the work. We clarify the information and access needed from your team, who approves the work, and which ongoing updates are included or separately scoped.

One risk to address is launching without migration mapping or mobile testing. The scope should explain how this will be checked and who is responsible for corrections. Your team should also know which activities depend on its systems or approvals, and which outcomes a service provider can measure without promising results it cannot control.

How to measure progress

Useful measures include successful task completion and preserved discoverability. We agree the definitions and available data before reporting progress. Activity measures such as impressions, visits and form submissions help explain the journey, but they need context from the institution before they can be treated as successful admissions or commercial outcomes.

Reporting should connect observed changes with a practical next decision. Compare equivalent periods and account for intake dates, course availability and changes in follow-up. Where the systems cannot reliably measure successful task completion and preserved discoverability, the report should identify the gap and the next measurement step rather than present an unsupported conclusion.

What to ask a potential digital partner

1. Can you show relevant work or explain how you would evaluate this project before recommending an approach?
2. How will subject-matter and admissions staff review claims before publication?
3. What are the acceptance criteria, maintenance responsibilities and escalation routes?

Official resources and references

• Google Search Central: creating helpful, reliable, people-first content
• Google Search Central: organization structured data
• US Federal Trade Commission: COPPA guidance, including school contexts

Prepare for a useful project discussion

Bring your current website or campaign example, the main question you want to resolve and any relevant information about current canonical URLs, backlinks, traffic and content owners. A short, specific brief is enough to begin. Do not send student records, passwords or other sensitive information through a public enquiry form.

Before implementation, agree who reviews the planning documents and how changes will be approved. The handover should identify the owner, the approved version and the checks used to accept it. This keeps future corrections and routine updates manageable after the project is complete.