Website redesign for businesses in Japan

Why redesigns go wrong

A redesign can raise conversions and it can also wipe out years of search traffic. The usual causes are changed URLs without redirects, deleted pages that ranked, lost titles and headings, and a slower template. In Japan there are extra risks: older sites sometimes use legacy encodings, separate mobile URLs or fixed-width layouts built for desktop.

We start by measuring what the current site earns, so we know what must not be lost. Then we design around it.

Another cause is scope creep: new sections get added late and the schedule slips. We list what is in and out of scope at the start and handle additions through a short change note with price and timing.

What we check before design

Our website redesign checklist and migration checklist list the full set.

We also record current Core Web Vitals and search rankings for your main terms, so the result can be compared with a clear before and after.

Designing for Japanese readers

Japanese pages often carry more information than Western ones, and users are used to dense layouts. A redesign should still give clear hierarchy. We set line height and line length for Japanese text, choose fonts that stay light after subsetting, and test line breaks so headings do not split in odd places. Phone screens come first, since most visits are on mobile.

Trust elements stay prominent: company profile, address, contact route, certifications and client names with permission. Forms use fields Japanese users expect, such as furigana and postal code lookup. For the build itself, see website design in Japan, and for the CMS option, WordPress development.

Accessibility is part of this work. Contrast, text size and keyboard use are checked, and public bodies or large firms may follow the JIS X 8341-3 standard, which we can review against on request.

Redirects and launch

• A one-to-one 301 map for every old URL, including Japanese URLs that appear percent-encoded in logs.
• Staging site blocked from search until launch day.
• New sitemap submitted in Search Console, with indexing watched for several weeks.
• Analytics and form tests run on the live site within the first hour.
• A rollback plan agreed in advance.

We avoid launching in Golden Week, Obon or the year-end break, when your team may be away. A quiet week in early autumn or spring often works well.

Project steps

1. Audit and planTraffic, page and technical review. Japan is 3.5 hours ahead of India, so 10:30 in Pune is 14:00 in Tokyo.
2. DesignMobile-first layouts in Japanese for your sign-off.
3. Build and migrateStaging build, content moved, redirect map tested.
4. Launch and monitorGo-live, then weekly checks of rankings and errors for the first month.

Content, approvals and timing

Approvals take time in many Japanese organizations, because several departments review wording. We build review rounds into the schedule and keep feedback in one shared document with named reviewers, so comments do not scatter across email and chat. Content is frozen on an agreed date, since late changes are the commonest reason for delays.

Where the old copy is outdated, we rewrite it for review by your native Japanese editor and keep a record of old and new text. Where it already ranks well, we leave it alone. This careful split protects traffic and still lets the design move forward.

After launch we keep the old site's files and a database copy for a set period. If a missing page or form shows up in the weeks that follow, it can be restored quickly.

Price

Projects start at $1,500, with a rate of $30 an hour, and a fixed quote follows a short call on the contact page. Page count, platform change, content rewrite and ecommerce features move the price. See the website redesign cost guide and our website redesign service page.