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Rebuild & Replatform

Everything the old site should have been, minus the platform bill.

R85,000 – R145,000 Fixed price · delivered in 5–8 weeks from R8,500/moover 12 months, hosting included · R102,000 totalDelivery is still 5–8 weeks — this only spreads the payment, it doesn't stretch the project.

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Is this you?

Your website is slow, rented, and everyone's afraid to touch it

You have a WordPress site, or something built on a page builder, put together a few years ago by someone who has since moved on. It takes seconds to load on a phone. There's a hosting invoice, a page-builder licence and a stack of plugin renewals, and none of them has ever made the site better. They just keep it alive.

Worse, it breaks when touched. A plugin update took the contact form down once and nobody noticed for a week. So changes get postponed, then batched, then quietly abandoned. The site has become a thing you work around rather than a thing that works for you.

And you've put off replacing it for one very rational reason: the rankings. Google still sends you enquiries, and you've heard about redesigns that halved someone's traffic overnight. Staying on a platform you hate feels safer than a move that might break the one part that still works. That fear is legitimate, and it's exactly what this package is built around.

What you
actually get

Every line below is a deliverable, not an intention. If it's on this list it's in the proposal, and if it's not on this list it isn't included.

A redirect map, so your rankings survive the move

Every URL on the old site mapped one to one to its new home, crawled before and after, and Search Console watched through the support window. First on this list because it's the reason you haven't moved yet.

An information architecture workshop before any design

We look at what the old site actually does, which pages earn traffic and which are dead weight, and agree the new structure before anything gets designed.

Up to 15 pages, or a full Shopify theme build

Built on a design-token system with a component library your team can extend. New pages later reuse the system instead of starting from scratch.

Your content migrated, not abandoned

Pages, posts and images moved across and tidied on the way. Years of content is an asset, and throwing it away is a big part of why rebuilds lose traffic.

Sub-second loads, with an enforced performance budget

No plugin chain, no page-builder weight, no database query per visit. The budget is written into the project, so the site can't quietly get slow again.

Full technical SEO and conversion tracking

Schema markup, clean titles and descriptions, GA4 with a conversion event on every call to action. You'll know what the new site produces, not just how it looks.

Everything handed over, in your accounts

Domain, hosting, analytics and every source file in accounts you own from day one. Nothing lives behind my login. If we part ways, you lose a supplier, not your website.

How it runs

So you know what's happening and when, and so nobody has to ask for a status update.

Week 0

The call

We look at the current site and its traffic. I tell you where in the R85,000 – R145,000 range you land, and why, before anything is signed.

Weeks 1–2

Audit and architecture

Full crawl of the old site, the sitemap workshop, and the redirect map started. Unglamorous, and the part that protects your rankings.

Weeks 2–3

Design direction

Homepage and key templates designed on the agreed structure. Nothing else gets built until you're happy with the direction.

Weeks 3–5

Build

The remaining pages, or the Shopify theme, on the approved system. You watch progress on a preview link as it happens.

Week 6

Migration and redirects

Content moved across, every old URL redirected, tracking wired in and tested.

Weeks 7–8

Revisions and launch

Your two revision rounds, then launch, Search Console submission, and the ranking watch begins.

+60 days

Support and ranking watch

Anything broken gets fixed free, and I watch search performance weekly. A wobble gets investigated, not shrugged at.

What I need from you

The projects that run late almost always run late for one of these reasons, so they're worth reading properly before we start.

Access to your current hosting, domain and analytics. If your old developer holds the logins, tell me on the first call, recovering access is week-one work, not a week-five surprise
A decision-maker who can approve the structure and the design direction, one person, not a committee
Rulings on what stays and what goes. I bring the traffic data, you bring the business judgement
Copy for any genuinely new pages, or bullet points I can shape. Existing content I migrate and edit
Prompt turnaround on the two revision rounds. The eight-week version of this project is the one where feedback takes a fortnight

What's not included

On the public page rather than buried in the proposal, so there's no argument in week five.

Writing all page copy (structure and editing included)
Custom application functionality
Ongoing SEO after handover
Product photography

Your other options

What happens if you don't do this

Do nothing. The bills keep arriving, the site keeps getting slower relative to everyone else's, and the plugin stack keeps ageing. The risk compounds quietly, because the person who understood how it all fits together is long gone.

Go cheaper. R15,000 buys a new template on the same platform. Same weight, same plugin chain, same monthly bills, new paint. If the site isn't a real source of business, that might genuinely be enough, and I'll say so rather than take the bigger job.

Go smaller. If you have five pages of real content and no search traffic to protect, this package is oversized for you. Launch Site at R29,500 gets you a better site for less, without migration machinery you don't need.

Go bigger. Running several sites, brands or regions that have drifted apart? Rebuilding one of them doesn't fix the actual problem, Multi-Site System does.

Straight
answers

Will I lose my Google rankings in the move?

Nobody can honestly guarantee rankings, and you should walk away from anyone who does. What I guarantee is the process that protects them: a one-to-one redirect map for every URL, content migrated rather than discarded, and Search Console monitored through the 60-day support window. Most moves see a small wobble that settles within weeks. Migrations go wrong when redirects are an afterthought, which is why here they're the first deliverable.

Why not rebuild it in WordPress so I can edit it myself?

Ask how often anyone actually edited the current site. For most owners the answer is almost never, yet you paid for the editability every month in speed, hosting and plugin surface. What you actually want is to not be trapped, and ownership solves that better than a dashboard: every file is yours, and changes ship same-day on a care plan. If you genuinely publish weekly, say so on the call and I'll build on Shopify or another editable base instead.

I've been quoted R15,000 for a redesign. Why is this R85,000?

The R15,000 job is a template skinned onto your existing platform, with no migration, no redirect map, no tracking and no performance budget, so it re-buys the problems you already have. Where you land between R85,000 and R145,000 depends on page count, whether it's a Shopify build, and how messy the migration is. The number is fixed in writing before we start.

Who owns the site, the domain and the data afterwards?

You do, completely, and from day one rather than at handover. Domain and hosting in your accounts, analytics under your Google account, every source file delivered. I've taken over too many sites held hostage by a previous developer to ever build that way. If we part ways, everything comes with you.

You're one person. What if you disappear halfway through?

The project is phased and you own everything at each phase, not at the end. Documentation is written as I go, the stack is standard code with no proprietary framework, and it all lives in your accounts. If I vanished after week four, any competent developer could finish. That's a structural answer, not a reassurance.

Can I spread the cost?

Yes. From R8,500/mo over 12 months, hosting included, with no deposit — the same amount every month from the start. Paying once instead, it is 50% to start and 50% on completion. Same scope, same ownership either way. Tell me on the first call and both numbers go in the proposal.

More than one site or brand to bring into line?

Multi-Site System, From R220,000

One design system. Every site on it. Your team can run it.

See Multi-Site System →

Sound like
your problem?

One call, no deck. If this isn't the right package I'll tell you which is.

Email instead