Bringing two websites together is a content decision before it is a visual one. A larger home page does not automatically explain how the services relate, which information still applies or where existing customers should go. Start by deciding what the combined website needs to help people do.
The South West offers several useful business settings for this exercise. Bristol City Council's business location overview includes creative, digital and professional services. Bath and North East Somerset's culture and heritage plans connect cultural activity with the visitor experience. Exeter's 2020 sector overview includes knowledge industries. The fictional planning examples below show how different offers can shape a consolidation; they do not describe actual local mergers or Giraffe Digital client work.
Explain the business relationship first
Write a short statement about why the websites are being combined. Is one business bringing related services under one identity? Has a separate project become part of the main offer? Will customers still deal with distinct teams? The public explanation needs to reflect the actual arrangement.
An illustrative Bristol studio might bring a separate production website into its main site. Customers still need to understand which work the studio undertakes and how the production offer connects with the wider service. Placing both former menus on one home page would preserve the old structure without explaining the new relationship.
A brief for website design in Bristol should therefore include the agreed service relationship and the customer tasks it supports. Designers can then organise the combined content around the current offer instead of reproducing two competing navigation systems.
Review the content before moving it
Inventory both sites, including important downloads and media. For each item, record its purpose, its current owner and whether the information remains accurate. Mark content that should be kept, revised, combined with another item or retired. An old page's existence does not establish that it belongs on the new website.
When two pages describe similar services, compare their substance. One may explain a different audience, service boundary or stage of the process. Keep a distinct explanation where it helps customers. Combine pages only when they genuinely answer the same question and the resulting page can preserve the useful information.
Include customer support information in the review. Existing customers may still need instructions associated with an earlier service or project. Decide how they can reach that information without presenting an outdated offer as available to new customers.
Keep useful customer destinations
Imagine a Bath visitor business bringing a small accommodation site and an experience site under one brand. A person arriving through a saved room link wants accommodation information. Someone following a workshop link expects the relevant experience. Both should reach a useful destination on the combined site.
The content plan should identify those destinations before launch. A common booking or enquiry route may be appropriate, but the pages leading to it still need to explain the particular offer. Confirm which practical details belong to each service and which are genuinely shared.
Work on branding in Bath can help establish a coherent identity across those experiences. Consistency means using an agreed voice and service relationship while preserving information that matters to a specific customer decision.
Map addresses to relevant replacements
Where URLs change, prepare an explicit old-to-new address map. Google's site move guidance describes mapping existing addresses, preparing the new site and using appropriate server-side permanent redirects. A mapping should connect a former page with a relevant replacement rather than send every old address to the home page.
Some retired content has no equivalent replacement. Agree how those addresses should be handled with the website team, rather than forcing an unrelated destination. Include important images and downloads in the inventory, update the links you control and test the agreed behaviour before treating the move as finished.
For businesses planning SEO in Exeter, address mapping is one part of the work. The destination must also contain the information that made the former page useful. A redirect cannot compensate for the removal of a technical explanation or a service detail that readers still need.
Agree one editorial version of shared information
An illustrative Exeter knowledge service could have separate resource and consultancy websites. Some explanations may support both audiences, while the consultancy pages need a clearer service scope. Decide which resource is authoritative for shared material and link to it from the relevant service context.
Check names, contact routes and service terminology across the combined site. Assign an owner to resolve conflicting descriptions before they are imported. Otherwise, a new design can make old inconsistencies look intentional. The same review should cover confirmation messages and useful downloads, not just the main page copy.
Coordinate the public change with the people answering enquiries. They should understand where familiar information has moved and how to explain the revised site. A concise customer notice can help when an old name or address will still be recognised, provided the notice describes the actual change accurately.
A consolidation decision sheet
Before commissioning the move, complete a decision sheet for the pages that matter most to your customers. Use it to brief both the content and technical teams.
- State the relationship between the offers on the combined site.
- Record the purpose and owner of each important existing page.
- Separate distinct customer needs from genuinely overlapping content.
- Agree a relevant destination or retirement decision for each address.
- Include downloads, images, contact routes and customer instructions.
- Test the content and technical behaviour together before launch.
Giraffe Digital's digital strategy support in the South West can help connect these decisions with a workable website brief. For businesses across the region, a carefully planned consolidation should make the current offer easier to understand while retaining information customers still rely on.
Frequently asked questions
Practical answers to questions about putting this advice into use.
What should we review before combining two business websites?
Review the business relationship, services, useful customer content and existing destinations before choosing the new structure. Decide what to retain, combine, update or remove, and agree who owns the resulting content.
Should every old website address redirect to the homepage?
No. Map an old address to a relevant replacement where one exists, so visitors reach information that answers the same need. A blanket homepage redirect can leave people without the content they expected.
