How do you redesign your website so it gets cited — by Google as much as by ChatGPT? By building in, from the brief onward, five measurable requirements: factual content that generative systems can reuse, solid technical performance, WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility, multilingualism calibrated to your actual market, and FADP compliance. None of these is cosmetic, none can be patched in at the end of the project. A redesign that ignores them in 2026 produces a deliverable that will have neither the lifespan nor the effectiveness expected.
This note absorbs the article previously titled "AI website redesign for Valais SMEs: a 5-phase methodology", de-indexed and redirected to this page.
AI citability is changing the brief
This is the most recent requirement, and the one that structures the others. Part of B2B search in Valais and French-speaking Switzerland now runs through generative environments — ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, Mistral, or the AI Overviews that Google has anchored to its core ranking systems since its doctrinal publication of 15 May 2026[1]. It's no longer enough for your pages to be indexable: their content must be usable by systems that synthesise several sources to produce an answer.
Concretely, three things. Pages that provide factual information usable out of context — a slogan-oriented description isn't citable anywhere. Complete and accurate JSON-LD markup: Organization, Person, Service, Article, LocalBusiness as relevant. A minimal structured third-party authority: relevant Swiss directories, professional mentions, open databases that models consult.
I applied this brief to the redesign of mcva.ch: every page answers a question a business owner genuinely asks, with markup set before design. This work is built during the content phase and consolidates month after month — the core of what I describe in sites designed to be cited.
Performance is measurable: 2.5 seconds, not "fast"
Google's Core Web Vitals remain a structuring signal for organic ranking, with public thresholds that are stable in 2026: a Largest Contentful Paint under 2.5 seconds, an Interaction to Next Paint under 200 milliseconds[2]. A site that exceeds these thresholds pays its debt in visibility and conversion — silently, every day.
Three levers account for most of the result. Edge-distributed hosting rather than a single regional server, which cuts load times for visitors on the move. Image processing — AVIF or WebP formats, dimensions matched to the actual screen — which accounts for most of a page's weight. Discipline in shipped code: deferred JavaScript, minimised external dependencies, controlled critical resources. Nothing magic here: an execution discipline that separates serious providers from the rest.
WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility, now a professional standard
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2, level AA, define a precise reference framework: sufficient contrast, full keyboard navigation, text alternatives, focus management, correctly labelled forms[3].
Three reasons make it operational in 2026. The legal reason: the European directive on the accessibility of products and services applies progressively, and Swiss companies selling into the European Union are affected. The commercial reason: a substantial share of users benefits from solid accessibility — disability, mobility, difficult environments, age. The technical reason: an accessible site is better interpreted by indexing robots, including AI ones, which read the same semantic signals.
Which languages, at what level of rigour?
Valais is bilingual French-German, with areas where English and Italian carry real weight — resorts like Verbier, Crans-Montana or Zermatt, but also the industrial hubs of Upper Valais. A site that ignores this reality loses a share of the market its dashboards won't show.
The operational requirement: error-free hreflang markup; an architecture that respects each language's own conventions — the German version follows its own search patterns, not a word-for-word translation; a translation quality that holds up, an unreviewed automated version damaging the brand more than it helps; editorial consistency across versions — same thesis, same angle, same authority.
The FADP shows up in your contact form
Anything that processes personal data on the site — form, analytics, chatbot, behavioural tracking — falls within the scope of the Federal Act on Data Protection, in force in its revised version since 1 September 2023[4]. For an SME selling into the European Union, the GDPR applies in parallel.
The obligations are documented: clear information for the visitor about the data collected and its purpose, a legal basis for each processing activity — analytics tools first among them —, caution around international transfers, an up-to-date register of processing activities and privacy policy. Built into the initial brief, this framework produces more durable sites; addressed at the end of the project, it produces costly catch-up work.
CMS, custom-built, or SaaS: three risk profiles
The turnkey CMS — WordPress, Squarespace, Wix — offers a fast start and partial autonomy. Its limits: dependence on third-party plugins, the technical debt of successive versions, the difficulty of holding Core Web Vitals on a complex site. Suited to simple editorial sites; problematic for a strategic site.
Custom development on a modern stack — Next.js, Astro and equivalents — offers full control over performance, markup, and code ownership. Its limits: a longer start-up time and a development skill set to maintain over time. Suited to strategic sites held for five to seven years.
The specialised SaaS platform — Shopify and sector equivalents — natively integrates features that would be costly to develop. Its limit: the infrastructure remains rented, and migrating elsewhere remains a substantial project. Relevant in e-commerce; to be weighed with caution for an institutional site.
The right choice depends on the project's strategic horizon, not an abstract technical preference. I covered the rent-versus-own trade-off in SaaS versus custom development in Switzerland.
Migration, the most underestimated phase
This is the phase where value is lost. A botched migration can cost months of organic visibility, sometimes on the most strategic queries — and part of that loss is not recoverable. Four points are non-negotiable:
- a complete 301 redirect plan, established before the switch-over, covering every URL of the old site;
- preserving the semantic hierarchy of content, to keep existing structure signals intact;
- immediate submission of the updated sitemap in Search Console, complemented by the IndexNow protocol;
- weekly monitoring for at least ninety days, with alerts on traffic drops and errors.
This phase cannot be compressed. A provider who presents it as a formality is telling you something about their method.
What I'd clarify before signing
Four questions asked upfront produce more value than any provider comparison. What horizon: an editorial site with sustained publishing, or a strategic platform held for five to seven years? Which languages does your commercial scope genuinely require, and at what level of rigour? What sensitivity of data will be processed, and what obligations follow from that? What levels of performance, accessibility and citability do you require from the brief onward — backed by figures?
Choosing a provider follows a different framework, set out in Choosing a digital agency in Valais. If the redesign is just one of the projects AI opens up for your business, the overall view is in What should a Swiss SME do about AI in 2026?. A redesign in 2026 isn't harder than in 2019 — it's more demanding. The entire gap between an asset that carries your presence for several years and a spend with no return lies in this requirement, set from day one of a citability-oriented redesign.
Key takeaways
— A 2026 redesign hinges on five measurable requirements: AI citability, performance, accessibility, calibrated multilingualism, FADP compliance. — The thresholds are public and verifiable: LCP under 2.5 seconds, INP under 200 milliseconds, the WCAG 2.2 AA reference framework. — Migration cannot be compressed: complete redirects, preserved hierarchy, ninety days of monitoring.
FAQ
How much does a website redesign cost in Valais? Ranges vary too much by scope for an average to mean anything. On the Swiss market, a professional showcase site typically runs into thousands of francs, a multilingual strategic platform into tens of thousands, excluding VAT. A very low quote most often signals deferred technical debt.
Should I rebuild everything or improve what exists? If the technical base holds the performance thresholds and the content structure is sound, targeted optimisation — markup, content, third-party authority — may be enough. If the foundation is dated, optimisation amounts to repainting a cracked wall. A pre-audit settles this question before the budget is committed.
Does my Valais site need to exist in German? It depends on your actual commercial scope, not a principle. A company serving Upper Valais or German-speaking Switzerland loses business without a serious German version; a strictly French-speaking company can prioritise differently. The decision is made language by language, based on your market data.
What should I check first with a redesign provider? Three things verifiable in a few minutes: the Core Web Vitals of their recent deliveries on Google's public tools, the presence of complete JSON-LD markup on their own pages, and the code-ownership clause in their standard contract. What a provider applies to itself signals what it will deliver to you.
Before redesigning your site, measure your starting point. The GEO Score™ pre-audit measures, free of charge, where your company appears — and doesn't appear — in the answers of ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Mistral. Quantified answer within a few days. Request a free pre-audit
Sources
[1] Google Search Central, Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search, published 15 May 2026. developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guide [↩]
[2] Google Search Central, Core Web Vitals report. developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/core-web-vitals [↩]
[3] World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2. www.w3.org/TR/WCAG22/ [↩]
[4] Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP), revision of 25 September 2020, in force since 1 September 2023. www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/2022/491/fr [↩]
Jérôme Deshaie is CEO and founder of MCVA Consulting SA, an augmented agency based in Valais. Fifteen years serving major international brands, now working directly with Swiss SMEs. Background.