Rebranding for the Future: How Out-Smarts Pulled Off a Website Redesign Without Sacrificing SEO

Launching a new website is a major milestone, and we at Out-Smarts know this better than anyone. We have guided numerous businesses through this very endeavor, and to verifiably stellar results. Better yet, our skills are constantly sharpening. Naturally, our own website should reflect this, proudly displaying what we can accomplish for our clients. 

At Out-Smarts, we recently completed a full website redesign and rebrand to reflect how far we’ve come as a digital marketing agency, as well as illuminating our path into the future. The goal? A site that is modern, professional, and authentic, all the while retaining the hard-won SEO equity we have built over the past two decades.

This case study walks through our brand refresh, the steady process we followed to rebuild our site, and the technical measures we took to ensure we retain our first-page rankings for competitive search terms.

Branding: A Visual Refresh Rooted in Our Origins

We began the website relaunch project by reinvigorating our brand, aiming both to evolve our visual identity and reconnect with our roots. The starting point was a collaborative moodboarding session. This helped us explore visual inspiration, clarify tone and personality, and define the over-all look and feel of the new Out-Smarts.

A key decision was to reinstate our geometric icon, incorporating the ‘triangle and circle’ design from Out-Smarts’ very first logo. This act is very meaningful to us as it pays homage to our foundation, while symbolising continuity, growth, and focused intent, tenets that underline our work as we march into the future. 

Fun fact: the original icon was inspired by crop circles. This echoes our early idea for a lighthearted extraterrestrial theme, a working name being ‘Out of this World’.

The updated colour palette incorporates deep navy (#2e3f63) and coastal blue (#067ca1) to assure professionalism and trust. These are complemented by a bright, semi-golden yellow (#f7cc6f) and soft off-white (#fefdf9) to imbue a sense of warmth and approachability, as well as signifying Out-Smarts’ versatility when contrasted with the logo’s cool tones.

We also redefined our typography. We chose DM Serif for headers, feeling from it a strong and elegant character, paired with Lato for body text, emphasising legibility whilst carrying a sharp, modern aesthetic. This combination forms a clean and confident visual identity that now reads consistent across the entire site.

Website Redesign Strategy: Applying Our 4-Step Process

As with any major website project, we followed our proven four-step process: Audit & Discovery, Strategy & Planning, Design & Build, and Launch & Optimisation. This ensured that every aspect of the relaunch would align with our goals: displaying our polished brand, improving user-interface, and protecting our SEO performance.

Step 1: Site Audit & Discovery

The first step was to understand where we were starting from. We carried out a detailed audit of the existing site, with a particular focus on SEO and user-behaviour. Using GA4, we identified the landing pages with the highest traffic, especially those that brought in organic visitors. We analysed impressions, click-through rates, and performance for key search queries. Our findings helped us to answer a key question for each of the site’s pages: keep, consolidate, or remove?

In Google Search Console, we examined sitelinks and keywords. We also pulled in the full sitemap and catalogued every live URL to initiate our link-redirection plan.

Beyond technical analysis, this phase included stakeholder interviews, a review of our competitors, and defining the experience we want for our future clients.

Step 2: Strategy & Planning

The planning phase involved turning audit insights into clear, tangible actions to apply within the new site. We redefined the site architecture to reflect our service areas more intuitively and make it easier for users to navigate. Content gaps were identified and new pages were introduced to support long-term SEO growth.

We developed new wireframes for the homepage, specialized service pages, an appealing blog layout, and detailed case studies, each designed to support user-intent and navigational ease. We also finalised a content map and keyword plan to ensure all priority pages were targeting the right search terms.

Crucially, we redirected all of our old URLs to their new equivalents. This aforementioned  link-redirection plan ensured the protection of our organic traffic by avoiding broken links post-launch.

Step 3: Website Design & Build

The design phase was when the new brand really came to life. Our team translated the moodboard and brand guide into high-fidelity designs, combining colour, typography, iconography, and photography into a clean, stylish interface.

A major focus was improving usability. The new site loads faster and employs modern UX principles to help users find what they need at a moment’s notice. CTAs were placed at key points throughout the site to drive engagement and conversions.

Development followed a mobile-first build that prioritised accessibility, site speed, and SEO best-practices. We integrated schema markup where appropriate and structured the code to be as tidy and lightweight as possible.

Step 4: Launch & Optimisation

Before going live, we ran extensive testing on our staging site which entailed inspecting and confirming functionality, forms, load times, and rendering across browsers and devices. We also implemented redirects, submitted the new sitemap to Google Search Console, and used SEO tools to validate on-page elements like meta tags and heading structure.

After launch, we monitored performance regularly for several weeks. Using GA4 and Search Console, we tracked organic traffic, keyword rankings, crawl errors, and user engagement. This way, we were able to swiftly identify and resolve any issues that could have harmed SEO or user-experience.

Safeguarding SEO During a Website Transition

One of the most important parts of this project was ensuring we retained our first-page rankings for key search terms. We rank on the first page of Google for a number of terms, such as Vancouver digital marketing agency, and we knew that any misstep could have a lasting impact on our visibility.

To avoid this, SEO was carefully considered at every stage of the project:

• We benchmarked our rankings before the redesign to understand where we stood
• We preserved the structure of key landing pages wherever possible
• We carefully rewrote content with keywords in mind, making sure not to lose topical relevance
• We implemented comprehensive 301 redirects and updated all internal links

Post-launch, we monitored organic traffic, stable keyword rankings, engagement, and time spent on the site. Early signs indicate that our efforts to protect SEO have soundly succeeded.

Results: A Website That Reflects Who We Are

The new Out-Smarts website is already performing wonderfully:

• Organic traffic has remained stable, even showing slight increases in top keyword visibility
• The new design has received positive feedback from clients, partners, and our own team

Beyond numbers, the biggest success is that the site now truly reflects our values: ethical marketing, real results, and a commitment to helping good businesses grow online.

Key Takeaways

This project reminded us of our clients’ perspectives and provided us with the proper context to guide those with whom we partner in the future using a refined tact. The brand rejuvenation and relaunch process reinforced the importance of structure, testing, and attention to SEO.

For others considering a similar project, here are a few lessons we learned:

• Start with brand clarity — everything from your visual identity to your mission, vision, values and differentiators, should align with who you are and what you offer
• Use data to inform your decisions, from content to structure
• Protect your SEO investment — conduct audits, redirect links, and monitor post-launch
• Be prepared to iterate — the launch is not the end, it is the beginning

We are proud of what we have built and excited for what comes next. We are confident that we have the tools and the talent to flourish, now more than ever before.