Which Pages Should I Keep in a Redesign?
Keep any page driving traffic, leads, or backlinks. Here’s the 4-filter test we run on every Tampa redesign to decide what stays, what merges, what dies.
Keep any page that drives traffic, generates leads, has earned backlinks, or fills a topical gap. In most Tampa SMB redesigns, that’s 40-70% of existing pages. The rest gets merged, rewritten, or removed. The keep/cut decision should be data-driven — not based on what the owner is sentimentally attached to.
The 4-filter keep test
Before launch, every existing URL runs through four filters. If a page passes any one, it stays (in some form):
Filter 1: Does it drive traffic?
Pull Google Analytics 4 and look at organic sessions over the last 12 months. Any page with more than 50 sessions a month earns its keep. Any page with 200+ sessions is a load-bearing wall — touch it carefully, don’t move the URL.
Filter 2: Does it generate leads?
Pages with form submissions or phone-click events on them are obvious keeps. Even a page with 20 visits a month that converts at 15% is more valuable than a page with 2,000 visits at 0%.
Filter 3: Does it have earned backlinks?
Run the site through Ahrefs or the free Search Console “Links” report. Any page with 3+ referring domains is a keep, even if traffic is low. Backlinks take years to earn and seconds to destroy with a bad redirect.
Filter 4: Does it fill a topical gap?
Some pages don’t drive traffic yet but cover keywords your competitors rank for. These are strategic keeps, especially if the page is well-structured and just needs more depth.
If a page fails all four filters, it’s a candidate for removal, merge, or rewrite.
What to keep (by page type)
In a typical Tampa SMB redesign, here’s what we recommend keeping:
- Homepage — always keep the URL (the domain root). Redesign the content, never the URL.
- Top 5 service pages — these usually drive most organic traffic. Keep URLs identical.
- About / Team page — high-trust page, almost always keeps URL.
- Contact page — keep URL, redesign content.
- Top-performing blog posts — any post with 100+ monthly sessions or 5+ backlinks. Keep URL, edit content for freshness.
- Location pages — every neighborhood or city page (Brandon, Westchase, South Tampa, etc.) gets preserved. These are local SEO gold.
- Case studies with social proof — these get sent to prospects often. Keep URL, refresh layout.
What to merge
When two pages cover the same topic shallowly, merging them creates one stronger page. Common merge candidates:
- Multiple thin service variants (“Custom Web Design,” “Custom Website Design,” “Bespoke Web Design”) — merge into one
- Old blog posts on the same topic from different years — merge into one updated post
- Multiple location pages for the same neighborhood — merge, 301 the duplicate
The merged page should be longer and deeper than either original. Don’t merge and shorten — that’s a ranking killer. See do I need to rewrite all my content for the full content strategy.
What to remove
Pages that fail all four filters get cut. Common removal candidates:
- Old service offerings you no longer sell
- Press releases from 2018
- Author bios for staff who left
- Thin tag and category archive pages
- Duplicate “Thank You” pages from old marketing campaigns
- Test pages and orphan URLs from previous developers
Every removed page still needs a 301 redirect — never to the homepage if you can help it. Redirect to the closest thematic replacement.
What about pages with sentimental value
This is where we have the awkward conversation. Owners often want to keep:
- The “Our History” page with 4 monthly visits
- The team page from 2014 that won a local award
- A blog post the founder wrote that nobody reads
Sometimes keeping these is fine — they don’t hurt anything. But understand: every page you keep is a page that has to be redesigned, QA’d, and maintained. If a page costs us an hour to rebuild and brings in zero leads, that’s a $150 page. Multiply by 30 vanity pages and the redesign just got $4,500 more expensive.
We push back on sentimental keeps not to be difficult, but because we’ve watched owners spend $3K rebuilding pages nobody reads while the homepage stays underbuilt.
The decision matrix
| Page status | Action | |—|—| | Driving traffic + leads + backlinks | Keep URL, refresh content | | Driving traffic, no leads | Keep URL, rewrite to add conversion path | | Driving leads, no traffic | Keep URL, add SEO depth | | Has backlinks, low traffic | Keep URL, expand content | | Topical gap, low metrics | Keep, expand to 1500+ words | | Outdated, duplicate, or orphan | Remove with 301 to closest replacement | | Sentimental but data-poor | Owner’s call — but flag the cost |
How we actually do the keep/cut audit
Step by step, for a typical Tampa redesign:
- Pull all URLs from Screaming Frog — usually 50-300 for an SMB site
- Pull GA4 page report for 12 months — sessions, conversions per page
- Pull Search Console queries — top 200 ranking pages
- Pull Ahrefs Site Explorer for backlinks per page
- Build a single spreadsheet — one row per URL, four data columns, fifth column for decision
- Recommend keep/merge/remove for each URL
- Owner reviews and approves — typically 1-2 hour call
- Final list locks the redirect map
This step takes a day. Skipping it is the most common reason redesigns fail.
What this means for your Tampa business
Before you start a redesign, ask your vendor: “How will you decide what to keep?” If the answer is anything less specific than the four filters above, that’s a red flag. The keep/cut decision is the single most important SEO step of a redesign. Get it right and you preserve traffic (see will I lose traffic when I redesign my website). Get it wrong and you start from scratch.
Most Tampa SMB sites we audit have 100-200 pages, of which 60-80 are worth keeping. The remaining 40-100 either get merged or retired. Done right, you launch with a leaner, stronger site — fewer URLs, more depth per URL, better internal linking.
If you’re unsure about your specific site, the $500 written SEO audit includes a keep/cut recommendation for every page on your current site. That’s the deliverable that prevents a $2K redesign from costing you $15K in lost traffic.
Got a more specific question about your project?
Send the details — we reply within one business day with a straight answer, no sales theater. Or book the 30-minute discovery call directly.