The verdict in three sentences
This worked example follows a fictional, representative company, not a real client: an Austin maker of industrial electrical enclosures whose 1,100 page site generates 45 % of its sales leads. With a USD 16,000 SEO migration budget, a map of 780 redirects and weekly Search Console monitoring, traffic recovers to 96 % of baseline within 6 weeks and runs 19 % above the old site by month 6. The lesson: the rebuild cost no leads because the migration was budgeted, staged and monitored as its own project.
Starting point
The fictional firm, call it Lone Star Enclosures, sells NEMA rated cabinets and custom enclosures to contractors, data centers and OEMs across Texas and the wider US. Its 9 year old site has 1,100 indexed URLs, including product configurators and spec sheet PDFs; 780 URLs earn organic visits or backlinks.
The site drives 26 qualified RFQs a month, with an average order of USD 18,500. Leadership wants a faster, accessible site (the new design targets WCAG 2.1 AA to reduce ADA risk) organised by application, without putting that lead flow at risk.
| Metric before rebuild | Value |
|---|---|
| Indexed URLs | 1,100 |
| URLs with traffic or backlinks | 780 |
| Monthly organic sessions | 14,500 |
| RFQs per month | 26 |
| Share of RFQs from Google | 45 % |
| Mobile load time | 5.9 seconds |
Budget and migration plan
The SEO migration budget sits apart from the rebuild budget and covers inventory, redirect mapping, staging QA and 12 weeks of monitoring.
| Item | Budget (USD) | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| Inventory and crawl of the old site | 2,000 | 4 days |
| Map of 780 redirects, PDFs included | 4,500 | 7 days |
| Two staging crawls, tags, structured data | 3,000 | 5 days |
| Launch and day one check | 1,500 | 1 day |
| Weekly Search Console monitoring, 12 weeks | 3,800 | 12 weeks |
| Post launch fixes | 1,200 | 3 weeks |
| Total | 16,000 | About 4 months |
The two staging crawls caught 61 broken redirects, 140 spec sheet PDFs with no target, and a robots rule that would have blocked the product configurator. All fixed before launch.
Recovery week by week
| Period | Organic traffic vs baseline | RFQs per month | Key action |
|---|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | 86 % | 23 | Fixed 22 redirect chains |
| Week 3 | 91 % | 24 | Resubmitted XML sitemaps |
| Week 6 | 96 % | 26 | Optimised 12 application pages |
| Month 3 | 107 % | 29 | Mobile load down to 2.2 seconds |
| Month 6 | 119 % | 33 | New industry pages (data centers, oil and gas) |
By month 6, RFQs rise from 26 to 33 a month. At a 15 % close rate, that is about one extra order a month, roughly USD 19,400 of added monthly revenue.
To keep that momentum going, Kolonell offers a visibility audit at 100,000 FCFA (about EUR 152), credited against setup if you start within 30 days, then 12 month Traffic Engine plans: Presence 125,000 FCFA (about EUR 191), Momentum 225,000 FCFA (about EUR 343) or Flood 350,000 FCFA (about EUR 534) a month, with a 300,000 FCFA setup (about EUR 457) and a weekly report.
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Illustrative example: Megan, VP of sales at the fictional company, must justify USD 16,000 to the owners. She models the no plan scenario: a 35 % traffic loss for five months would cut RFQs from 26 to about 20 a month, losing roughly 30 RFQs and 4 to 5 orders at USD 18,500, around USD 83,000 of revenue.
With the migration, the worst dip was 14 % for one week, and month 6 brings 7 extra RFQs a month. The roughly one extra order per month pays back the USD 16,000 within the first month of added revenue.
FAQ
Is this a real client?
No, it is a fictional company built on representative figures. A USD 16,000 budget and 780 redirects are realistic for a 1,100 page US B2B site in 2026.
Why redirect PDFs?
Spec sheets often hold backlinks from distributors and engineers. Here 140 PDFs had links, and dropping them would have lost about 9 % of referring domains.
What does a smaller migration cost in the US?
For 200 to 400 pages, expect USD 5,000 to 9,000 with a consultant. Monitoring for 8 to 12 weeks stays essential at any size.
Why did traffic end up higher than before?
The new site loads in 2.2 seconds instead of 5.9 and groups content by application. Those gains produced 19 % more traffic at month 6.
Should SEO continue after the migration?
Yes, the migration protects what you have, ongoing work grows it. The new industry pages alone delivered 4 of the 7 extra monthly RFQs.
Get found by the customers searching for you. Start with a visibility audit at 100,000 FCFA (about EUR 152), credited against setup within 30 days, then a Traffic Engine plan with a weekly report to turn your new site into a steady source of quote requests: Traffic Engine. WhatsApp +221 77 596 93 33.
Mohamed Bah
Fondateur, Kolonell
Passionate about digital and entrepreneurship in Africa, Mohamed has been helping Sénégalese businesses with their digital transformation since 2020. Founder of Kolonell, he believes every SME deserves a professional and accessible online présence.