WordPress SEO Preservation Specialist. Redesign & Rebrand, 10-Year-Old Service Site (WPX Hosting)

ABOUT THE PROJECT We are hiring a WordPress SEO specialist for a paid consulting engagement (starting with a 1–2 hour strategy call, with potential for full implementation) to help us execute a website rebrand without losing a single ranking. Our site is an established 24/7 emergency plumbing dispatch and referral service that has been operating for approximately 10 years. The site runs entirely on organic traffic. There are no paid ads. 100% of our revenue is driven by inbound calls from Google search. We have zero tolerance for ranking loss. We are planning a transparency-focused rebrand: updated messaging, visual refresh, and a page builder migration on WordPress hosted on WPX Hosting. The redesign work cannot jeopardize what has been built organically over the past decade: our keyword rankings, backlink profile, plugin configuration, internal link structure, page-level SEO signals, and technical SEO setup. SEO preservation is the primary objective. Design and branding are secondary. We need someone who understands this instinctively. WHAT'S AT STAKE - 10 years of accumulated keyword authority and organic rankings - An established backlink profile pointing to specific pages and URLs - SEO plugin configuration (meta titles, meta descriptions, schema markup) built over years - Internal linking architecture that distributes page authority across the site - Core Web Vitals scores and page speed performance that directly affect rankings - Local search presence and structured data markup If any of this is disrupted during the redesign, revenue drops immediately. There is no paid traffic to fall back on. THE STAGING SETUP We are using a secondary inactive domain as our staging environment. It serves the same purpose as a standard staging subdomain. You will build the full redesign on this staging domain, I will review and approve it, and only then will you replicate the approved changes to the live site. No full-site database migration. Design layer only. WHAT WE NEED FROM YOU 1. Pre-redesign SEO audit: Document every ranking page, target keyword, inbound backlink URL, plugin setting, schema markup, and technical signal before anything is touched. This becomes our safety baseline. 2. URL and redirect strategy: Identify every URL that receives backlinks or organic traffic. Build a complete 301 redirect map for any URLs that must change. Nothing goes live without this map in place. 3. SEO plugin migration plan: Our current SEO plugin settings (meta titles, descriptions, schema, sitemaps) must carry over without loss. Tell us exactly how you handle this. 4. Page builder recommendation: We are evaluating Elementor, Divi, Beaver Builder, and Gutenberg. Recommend the best option for SEO signal preservation and Core Web Vitals performance. 5. Staging and monitoring workflow: How do you use the staging environment to validate SEO configuration before going live? What do you check in Google Search Console before, during, and after launch? 6. Non-technical team guardrails: Our branding specialist is not technical and will be doing hands-on work in the page builder. What role permissions and editing guardrails do you set up to ensure she cannot accidentally break SEO structure? 7. Post-launch monitoring plan: What are you watching in the first 30 days after launch, and what are the trip wires that would trigger a rollback? THE SITE ENVIRONMENT - Platform: WordPress - Hosting: WPX Hosting - Page builder: TBD (your recommendation) - SEO plugin: Yoast or RankMath (confirm on site review) - Traffic: 100% organic · 5–10 inbound calls per day · Zero paid ads - Age: Approximately 10 years. Established domain authority and backlink profile. IDEAL CANDIDATE - Has executed WordPress redesigns on established, high-organic-traffic sites without ranking loss. Must be able to prove it with a real example. - Deeply familiar with technical SEO: crawl budget, canonical tags, robots.txt, XML sitemaps, structured data, Core Web Vitals, redirect chains - Has a documented pre-redesign audit process. Not someone who figures it out as they go. - Expert-level knowledge of Yoast SEO and/or RankMath, including export/import of settings across migrations - Comfortable with WPX Hosting: staging environment, WP Rocket or similar caching, deployment workflow - Has worked with Google Search Console as a primary monitoring tool through a live site migration - Can communicate clearly with a non-technical team. You will be the single source of truth on all SEO decisions. WHAT THIS IS NOT - Not a generalist WordPress development job - Not a new site build from scratch. This is a careful, SEO-protected evolution of an established site. - Not a design or branding role. SEO and technical WordPress expertise is the only thing we are hiring for here. - Not for someone who will "do their best" on SEO. We need a proven specialist. TO APPLY: ANSWER ALL FOUR QUESTIONS (Applications without answers will not be reviewed) 1. Walk me through your pre-redesign SEO audit process. What specifically do you document before touching an established site, and how does that documentation protect the site during the build? 2. A site has 200+ inbound backlinks pointing to various page URLs. During a redesign, the page builder migration changes some URL slugs. What do you do, step by step, to ensure no backlink equity is lost? 3. Describe a specific project where you executed a redesign or migration on an established WordPress site with significant organic traffic. What were the SEO risks, how did you handle them, and what happened to rankings after launch? Please share the site URL if possible. 4. Which page builder would you recommend for a service business on WPX Hosting where SEO signal preservation and Core Web Vitals performance are the top priorities, and why? BUDGET & TIMELINE Do not underprice this role. We are protecting 10 years of organic equity. SKILLS REQUIRED Technical SEO · WordPress Migration · Website Migration · SEO Audit · Yoast SEO · RankMath · Google Search Console · 301 Redirects · Core Web Vitals · Schema Markup · WPX Hosting · Elementor or Divi · Backlink Preservation · On-Page SEO