Step 01
Non-binding first consultation
We discuss what you're planning and when go-live is scheduled. From that, it follows at which points I get involved in the project.
A relaunch or a larger change to a website often changes more than you're aware of: backlinks suddenly point nowhere, the link structure gets turned upside down, and Google often keeps old pages « in mind » for quite a while. Without clean preparation, you quickly lose rankings that you've built up over years, and in the worst case the website ends up worse off than before the overhaul. And often this only becomes noticeable weeks later, once traffic has already declined.
That's exactly why SEO needs to be considered already during the website project, not just for damage control afterwards: when it comes to relaunches, as your SEO freelancer I do the website sign-off before the new site goes live, check the new architecture, test the redirects, and make sure the move takes your existing visibility along instead of leaving it behind.
Who it's for
For businesses making fundamental changes to their website. And for web agencies that don't offer SEO and tracking themselves and are looking for a reliable partner for their project.
What you get
An SEO sign-off as a fixed part of your relaunch. Checking the site against best practices, redirects etc. and (on request) the clean migration of your tracking.
How I work
Involved rather than tacked on at the end: I work directly with you or your web agency, understand both tech and marketing, and make sure SEO doesn't only become a topic after go-live.
During a relaunch, the focus understandably points forward: new design, new content, new technology. It's easy to lose sight of what the old site could already do. Working URLs, existing rankings and the trust built up with Google over years. Carrying all of that through the move only works if you pay attention to it early enough.
What the SEO sign-off delivers
Before you move into a house, you have it professionally inspected. With a website relaunch, this « sign-off » often falls by the wayside, even though the consequences can be similarly expensive. This is exactly where my relaunch SEO service comes in: I look at the new site before it's live and check typical stumbling blocks before they become a problem. Among other things, this includes:
- mapping and testing the redirects, so that neither visitors nor crawlers end up running into nothing,
- making sure canonicals, sitemaps and metadata survive the move and can be processed by Google without obstacles, so that Google « understands » the new website right away,
- and making sure valuable backlinks and page authority aren't lost because the signals aren't correctly passed on to the new site.
The result is a clear assessment: green light for go-live, or a concrete list of what still needs to be done beforehand.
How it works
Step 02
Stocktaking
While the old site is still live, I check the starting point: existing URLs, rankings and the current tracking setup.
Step 03
SEO sign-off
Before the new site goes live, I check it systematically: redirects, stumbling blocks, SEO basics and more. On request, I prepare the tracking migration in parallel.
Step 04
Go-live support
At go-live I check right afterwards whether the redirects take effect and whether everything was migrated cleanly. That way problems don't only surface weeks later.
Step 05
Follow-up checks
In the weeks after the relaunch I keep an eye on whether rankings have moved across or even improved. And if I do notice something, I fix it: the move is only complete once everything is in place.
Why tracking should be part of it too
One point that classic SEO usually doesn't cover, but which can easily be part of the project with me: a relaunch almost always destroys the tracking setup. Tags fire into nothing, custom events reference elements that no longer exist, and in the end exactly the data is missing that you'd want to use at some point to check whether the new website achieved anything.
That's why I offer migrating your tracking as part of my relaunch SEO service: GA4, Google Tag Manager, pixel setups and your events move across too, instead of being patched ad-hoc after go-live, once the damage is already done.
By the way, if the tracking is being touched during the relaunch anyway, that can often be a good opportunity to overhaul the tracking completely: if your new website has new interaction options, audiences or user paths, it's worth combining the website relaunch with a tracking relaunch, so that afterwards everything fits together cleanly.
Frequently asked questions
As early as possible, ideally as soon as the relaunch is decided, but at the latest before the new site is finished. The earlier I'm involved, the more can be avoided from the outset instead of repaired after the fact.
Yes. This isn't the ideal moment, but a lot can still be salvaged even after go-live: missing or incorrect redirects, pages accidentally left non-indexable, lost metadata. The sooner we take a look, the less the damage sets in.
Yes, that's actually often the case. I also frequently work as a subcontractor for web agencies, working directly with the team and taking on the part they don't cover. And that without any additional coordination effort for you.
Before go-live, you get a clear assessment from an SEO perspective: is the new site ready, or are there points that should be fixed first? In the best case the result is an « all good - green light for SEO! », otherwise a prioritised list of the open points, so that no one goes live blindly.
No, it's optional, but recommended, because a relaunch almost always affects the tracking. On request, GA4, Tag Manager and your events move across in a controlled way. If your tracking is looked after elsewhere, I coordinate with whoever is responsible.
That's one of the more demanding cases, because it merges entire domains and their history. That's exactly when clean preparation pays off: which content goes where, which URLs get consolidated, and how the visibility of both sites is preserved. On top of that, it needs to be checked whether the content covers similar keywords & intents and is therefore likely to cannibalise itself.
Or would you prefer email?
I usually get back to you within the next few hours. If you'd like, you can go ahead and explain what this is about and leave me a link to your website.