Stained Glass Website Redesign: Protect SEO, Portfolio Assets and Enquiries

Overview

A redesign should improve the website without quietly deleting the evidence that made the old one valuable.

Established stained glass studios often have exactly the kind of legacy content that gets lost during a cosmetic rebuild: project pages, church names, restoration examples, press links, long-lived images and URLs that have accumulated search visibility for years.

Treat redesign as a migration project, not a paint job.

1. Crawl the old site before changing anything

Create an inventory of current public URLs.

Record:

Do not rely on memory.

A page can look unimportant and still rank for a useful long-tail query.

• homepage;
• service pages;
• commission pages;
• restoration/repair pages;
• project galleries;
• individual project pages;
• about/team pages;
• contact pages;
• location pages;
• FAQs;
• downloadable documents if any;
• older pages that still receive external links.

2. Decide the destination of every meaningful URL

For each old page, choose one action:

Avoid sending every deleted URL to the homepage.

A redirect should take a visitor to the closest useful replacement.

• keep the URL and improve the content;
• move the content to a new URL and redirect the old one;
• consolidate it into a stronger relevant page and redirect;
• retire it because it has no value and no equivalent destination.

3. Preserve project evidence

Portfolio migration deserves its own workstream.

For important projects, preserve:

Do not throw away the descriptive context and rebuild the gallery as anonymous thumbnails.

Project context helps buyers and search engines understand what the studio actually does.

• original high-quality images;
• web-optimized versions;
• project title;
• type of work;
• location at a safe level of detail;
• technique where useful;
• short project description;
• commission versus restoration context;
• photographer credit where required;
• permission notes when relevant.

4. Curate before importing

Migration is a good moment to remove noise.

You do not need five nearly identical photos of the same window.

A stronger project entry often contains:

Use fewer images when they tell the story better.

1. one clear overall view;
2. one image showing the work in the space;
3. one or two useful detail shots;
4. concise context.

5. Keep commission intent visible

During redesigns, visual teams sometimes make the site more beautiful and the conversion path less obvious.

After the redesign, a new visitor should still quickly understand:

Do not make the CTA disappear into an artistic navigation experiment.

• whether custom commissions are accepted;
• whether repair/restoration is offered;
• where the studio works;
• how the process begins;
• whether the next step is a quote request, commission request or consultation.

6. Separate request flows from real booking

If the studio must review project scope before committing to a meeting, keep the first step as a request.

If it genuinely offers defined consultation slots, OneStudio online booking can support actual available-time selection where configured.

A preferred date entered into a form is not a confirmed appointment.

Preserve this distinction during migration so visitors are not accidentally promised availability.

7. Map metadata intentionally

For important pages, migrate or rewrite:

Do not blindly copy weak metadata.

The goal is to preserve meaning while improving clarity.

• page title;
• meta description;
• H1;
• canonical URL;
• image alt text where useful;
• structured internal links.

8. Rebuild internal links

When URLs change, old internal links can create a maze of redirects.

Update navigation, body links and CTA links to point directly to final destinations.

Pay attention to links from:

• homepage;
• project pages;
• service sections;
• about page;
• footer;
• guides or editorial content;
• old portfolio entries.

9. Check external destinations too

Verify:

A successful migration can still lose leads if old profiles keep pointing to dead pages.

• Google Business Profile website link;
• social media bios;
• association directories;
• architect/designer profiles;
• press articles you can edit;
• email signatures;
• paid campaigns if any.

10. Test the media experience on real phones

Stained glass sites often fail here because desktop images are huge.

Check:

A dramatic 8 MB hero image is not dramatic when it arrives after the visitor leaves.

OneStudio includes image optimization and website/media tools according to its current features and pricing pages, but the studio should still choose sensible source images and review the final result.

• homepage loading;
• gallery scrolling;
• image crops;
• captions;
• lightbox behavior if used;
• CTA placement;
• form completion;
• navigation;
• contrast over bright artwork.

11. Protect contact and enquiry paths

Before launch, submit every important form yourself.

Confirm:

A migration is not complete until a real enquiry can travel through it.

• required fields behave correctly;
• email/phone links work;
• success states are understandable;
• project type wording is accurate;
• no old contact address remains;
• consultation wording matches reality;
• mobile input is comfortable.

12. Reconnect client workflow carefully

If the new setup uses OneStudio CRM, keep claims within its verified role: client/contact details, history, notes and related operational context where configured.

See CRM.

Do not migrate conservation records, technical drawings, fabrication data or specialist condition assessments into a generic CRM just because they are "client information."

Specialist records should stay in the appropriate system.

13. Watch the site after launch

A migration needs a short observation period.

Monitor:

Do not judge the redesign only by how it looks on launch day.

• 404s;
• unexpected redirects;
• indexed old URLs;
• form submissions;
• traffic to high-value pages;
• image loading issues;
• mobile problems;
• changes in search impressions and clicks when Search Console data is available.

Migration checklist

• Old URL inventory completed.
• Destination mapped for each important URL.
• Redirects prepared.
• Project photos preserved and curated.
• Project context migrated.
• Main commission CTA remains obvious.
• Request versus booking language is accurate.
• Titles, descriptions and H1s reviewed.
• Internal links point directly to final URLs.
• External profiles updated where possible.
• Mobile galleries tested.
• Forms submitted end to end.
• No specialist fabrication/conservation claims were introduced.
• Post-launch 404 and search monitoring planned.

Redesign without erasing the studio's history

The best stained glass redesign feels new without behaving as if the business was born yesterday.

Keep the strongest project evidence, preserve useful URLs and make the commission path clearer than it was before.

Explore OneStudio features and the turnkey website option.