Website Redesign Checklist for Business Owners

Redesigns go wrong in predictable ways. The new site looks better and brings in fewer inquiries, because pages that ranked on Google were deleted, or the form was never reconnected, or nobody decided what the redesign was for. This checklist is designed to prevent that.

Before you start: decide why

A redesign needs a reason beyond "it looks dated". Write down what should be different in six months:

• More inquiries from the same traffic
• Easier for staff to update
• Faster on phones
• New services or locations represented properly
• Something customers currently cannot do online

If you cannot name the goal, you cannot tell whether the redesign worked.

Before you start: record what you have

• Note your current monthly visitors, inquiries and top pages
• Export a list of every URL on the current site
• Identify which pages bring in search traffic (Google Search Console shows this)
• Save copies of all text and images you want to keep
• List every form, booking link, tracking code and integration

The pages that already rank are assets. Treat them carefully.

Before you start: get access in order

• Confirm the domain is registered in an account you control
• Gather logins for hosting, the current site, analytics and Search Console
• Find out who manages your email, and make sure the redesign will not disturb it

Email going down during a website launch is a classic and avoidable accident. It happens when someone changes DNS settings without knowing the email depends on them.

During the project

• Agree the page list and write the copy before design begins
• Review designs on a phone, not just a large monitor
• Use real content in the designs, not placeholder text
• Keep URLs the same where the page still exists
• Map every old URL that is changing to its new address
• Give each page its own title and description
• Check contrast, heading order and image descriptions for accessibility

Before launch

• Submit every form and confirm the message arrives
• Click every link in the menu and footer
• Test on at least one iPhone and one Android phone
• Set up permanent (301) redirects from old URLs to new ones
• Install analytics and confirm it records visits
• Confirm the site is not blocking search engines. Development sites often are, and the setting is easy to forget
• Check loading speed on mobile data

The week after launch

• Submit the new sitemap in Google Search Console
• Watch Search Console for crawl errors and fix missing pages
• Test the forms again
• Update the link on your Google Business Profile and social accounts if it changed
• Ask a few customers to use the site and tell you what confused them

The month after

• Compare visitors and inquiries with the numbers you recorded at the start
• Check that the pages that used to rank still do
• Fix whatever the first real visitors exposed

Some movement in search rankings after a redesign is normal while Google re-reads the site. A steep, lasting drop usually means redirects were missed. Google documents the process in its guide to site moves and migrations.

The mistake to avoid above all

Do not let anyone delete or rename pages without redirecting them. A redirect takes minutes to set up. Recovering the search traffic lost without one can take months.