Start with an inventory of what the current site already earns.
Before any design work, list every address on the current site: practice area pages, attorney bios, articles, location pages, and older pages that other sites still link to. A crawl of the site, its XML sitemap, and the pages report in Google Search Console together give a fuller list than any one of them alone.
For each page, note the searches and visits it brings in, using Search Console and analytics, and the other sites that link to it. Pages with search visits or links are assets. Older articles can bring in steady visits without anyone noticing, and they are the pages easiest to lose in a redesign.
Decide for each page whether to keep it, improve it, merge it with another, or retire it, and make the decision on evidence. Retiring a thin page is fine. Dropping a page that brings in visits, with no replacement and no redirect, is how firms lose visibility.
Redirect every old address to its matching new page.
Every address that changes needs a permanent redirect, a server response that tells browsers and search engines the page has moved. Point each old address to the most relevant new page, not to the home page. Search engines treat a redirect to an unrelated page much like a missing page.
Keep addresses unchanged where you can. If the new site uses a different structure, such as practice areas grouped under one section, write the redirect map as a table of old and new addresses, review it with the people who know the content, and test it before launch.
Avoid chains, where one redirect leads to another, and loops. Leave the redirects in place for the long term, because links from other sites and bookmarks keep using old addresses. If the domain itself changes, use the change of address tool in Search Console as well.
Carry over the content and signals search engines rely on.
Move the substance of each page, not just its headline. Practice pages that answered real questions should keep those answers. Attorney bios should keep bar admissions, education, practice areas, and publications. Articles should keep their dates and authors.
Carry over page titles and descriptions, or improve them deliberately. Keep headings meaningful, describe images with alternative text, and point internal links directly at the new addresses rather than through redirects. Add structured data for the firm, its attorneys, and its articles where it applies.
Write for people first. Each page should meet a distinct need, such as explaining a kind of case the firm handles, rather than repeating near-identical text for every town or combination of services. Lawyer advertising rules on claims, results, and testimonials apply to the new copy as they did to the old, so the firm’s lawyers should review it before launch.
Launch carefully and check the move afterward.
Build the new site at a staging address that search engines cannot index, and test the redirect map, forms, phone links, and page performance there. Before launch, remove the block on indexing from the new site, a step that is easy to miss and costly when missed.
At launch, publish the new XML sitemap and submit it in Search Console, check that every old address redirects to the right page, and confirm that contact forms and consultation requests reach the right people.
After launch, watch the Search Console reports for pages not found, pages left out of the index, and changes in impressions for important pages. Some movement in search results is normal after a move; a page that disappears usually points to a broken redirect or missing content worth fixing.
Choose a platform the firm can leave, and plan for care after launch.
Check who holds the domain, the hosting account, the analytics and Search Console access, and the content. Each should be in the firm’s name or available to the firm. Sites built on a closed platform can be hard to move, which matters at the next redesign or change of vendor.
Standard, widely supported tools give the firm choices: another developer can maintain the site, and the content can be exported. Whatever the platform, agree in writing what happens to the site and its content if the relationship ends.
A site needs care after launch: security updates, backups, monitoring, new attorney bios, and new articles. Decide who does that work, how changes are requested, and how the redirect map is kept intact when pages change later. Baybloom builds law firm websites from a sample design or a custom one, moves the current site with its redirects, and hosts and cares for the site afterward.
Put it into practice
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