SIGNALS YOU'RE DUE
- [ ! ]The site looked sharp at launch and has not produced a qualified lead since.
- [ ! ]Nobody on your team can update content without calling the agency that built it.
- [ ! ]It scores under 50 on mobile PageSpeed and your bounce rate shows it.
- [ ! ]The design dates you — visitors can tell it was built five platforms ago.
- [ ! ]You rank for your name and nothing else.
- [ ! ]The last redesign lost your rankings, and the agency called that normal.
KEEP WHAT EARNS. REBUILD WHAT LEAKS.
A redesign is not a blank page. Before anything gets touched, we map what the current site is actually doing — which pages rank, which convert, which quietly bleed. Then the work splits into two lists.
- >URLs that hold rankings — kept in place or 301-mapped one-to-one, never dropped in bulk.
- >Content that earns organic traffic, migrated intact instead of rewritten for novelty.
- >The analytics history and tracking continuity that makes before/after comparison honest.
- >Integrations that work — CRM, email, payment flows — rewired, not re-bought.
- >The template holding the whole thing hostage. The rebuild is custom code you own.
- >Page weight and Core Web Vitals — performance treated as a build requirement.
- >Conversion paths: forms, CTAs, and page flows designed against a measurable goal.
- >The parts of the stack that only the old agency understood. Documentation is a deliverable.
HOW A REDESIGN RUNS
- PHASE 01
FORENSIC AUDIT
Rankings, traffic, conversion data, and the codebase itself. We find out what the current site does before deciding what the next one should. You see the evidence, not a slide of opinions.
- PHASE 02
DESIGN AGAINST DATA
The new design is shaped by what the audit proved — what visitors actually do, where they leave, what they came for. Not by what looked good on an awards site last month.
- PHASE 03
REBUILD
Custom code, performance budgets, and accessibility handled during the build. You talk to the people writing it, and you can watch the work move.
- PHASE 04
MIGRATE & MONITOR
Redirect map shipped, sitemaps resubmitted, rankings watched daily through the cutover window. If a term dips, we know the day it happens — not at the quarterly review.
CLIENT TRANSMISSIONS
VERIFIED OPERATOR FEEDBACK // CLEARANCE LEVEL: PUBLIC
"Nicklaus was absolutely fantastic to work with. He completely transformed our website for The CPG Co-Op, and the end result is better than I could have imagined. What really sets Nicklaus apart is that he’s not just a great designer—he has a deep understanding of the technical side of websites and the backend functionality that makes everything work. He was able to take a fairly complex project, handle the technical details seamlessly, and still make the entire process incredibly easy for me as someone who is, frankly, a total luddite when it comes to this stuff. He also built the site in a way that makes it incredibly easy for me to manage and make changes myself, which means we aren’t constantly paying someone every time we need to update something. That was a huge win for us. He was responsive, collaborative, incredibly fast, and genuinely cared about getting it right. I would highly recommend Nicklaus to anyone looking for someone who can bring the creative vision and the technical expertise to actually execute it. He made the whole process easy—and delivered a website we absolutely love."
EMILY KEALEY
FOUNDER // THE CPG CO-OP
ON THE CPG CO-OP
STRAIGHT ANSWERS
WILL A REDESIGN HURT OUR SEARCH RANKINGS?
A careless one will — bulk URL changes with no redirect map are the classic way sites lose years of equity overnight. Our process treats rankings as an asset under protection: URLs are preserved or 301-mapped one-to-one, ranking content migrates intact, and positions are monitored daily through cutover. That risk management is the core of the service, not an add-on.
DO WE HAVE TO REBRAND TO REDESIGN?
No. A redesign fixes how the site works; a rebrand changes who you look like. Most clients need the first and not the second, and we will not sell you a rebrand to inflate the invoice. If your identity genuinely fights against conversion, we will show you the evidence and let you decide.
CAN YOU REDESIGN JUST PART OF THE SITE?
Yes. If the audit shows the marketing pages leak but the product pages perform, we rebuild the leak. Partial redesigns are often the right call, and they are cheaper — an agency that always recommends the full rebuild is quoting its own revenue target.
CAN WE KEEP OUR CMS?
Usually, yes. If your team knows the current CMS and it is not the bottleneck, we build the new front end against it. If the CMS itself is what makes every change slow and expensive, we will say so with specifics — not a reflexive migration pitch.
HOW LONG DOES A REDESIGN TAKE?
Audit findings land within the first two weeks. Contained redesigns run in weeks; full rebuilds with migrations run longer and depend on content readiness and integrations. Either way the timeline is in writing before work starts.
WHAT DOES A REDESIGN COST?
It depends on what the audit finds, which is exactly why we audit before we quote. You get a fixed number in writing after scoping — and sometimes the honest answer is that you need a smaller project than you expected.
SEND THE SITE. WE'LL TELL YOU WHAT TO KEEP.
You get a straight assessment within 24 hours — including the parts of your current site worth preserving, which most agencies will never admit exist.