Website redesign checklist: before, during and after launch

A website redesign fails in one of two ways. It launches and enquiries drop, or it launches and search traffic drops. Both are preventable, and both are prevented by work that happens before and after the design, not during it. This is the checklist we use.

What should you do before a website redesign?

Write down what the site is for. One sentence: "A visitor should book a call," or "A patient should book an appointment." Every design decision gets judged against it.

Export what you already have. Before anything changes, save:

• Every URL on the current site, from the sitemap and a crawl
• The top pages by organic traffic, from Search Console (last 12 months)
• The search queries each of those pages ranks for
• Current conversion numbers: form submissions, calls, bookings per month

This is your baseline. Without it, nobody can say whether the redesign worked.

Decide what stays. Pages that bring in search traffic are assets. They can be improved, but they should not be deleted or merged without a reason.

Draft the redirect map. A spreadsheet with two columns: old URL, new URL. Every old URL gets a row. This is the single most skipped step and the most common reason a redesign loses rankings. We cover the mechanics in how to redesign a website without losing SEO rankings.

What should you check during the build?

• One H1 per page, and it says what the page is about in the words a customer would search.
• A unique title and meta description per page. Not the homepage title repeated.
• A self-referencing canonical tag on every page. We once shipped a site where every page's canonical pointed at the homepage. Here is what that does.
• Content is in the HTML, not only painted in by JavaScript after load.
• Forms actually deliver. Submit each one and confirm the message arrives where a person will see it.
• It is fast on a mid-range phone on mobile data, not just on the designer's laptop.
• Images have alt text and sensible file sizes.
• The staging site is blocked from search engines, and you have a note to unblock production.

What should you do on launch day?

1. Deploy the redirects with the site, not a day later.
2. Remove any noindex left over from staging.
3. Test twenty old URLs by hand. Each should land on the right new page with a 301.
4. Submit the new sitemap in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
5. Submit one test enquiry through every form and every booking flow.
6. Check analytics is recording visits and conversions.

What should you monitor after launch?

When	What to check
Day 1 to 3	404 errors in server logs and Search Console. Fix with redirects.
Week 1	Pages indexed, crawl errors, form submissions arriving
Week 2 to 4	Rankings and clicks for your top pages against the baseline
Month 2 to 3	Enquiries per month against the baseline

Some movement in rankings in the first few weeks is normal while search engines recrawl. A steady decline over a month is not, and usually traces back to a missing redirect or removed content.

How long does all of this take?

For a typical marketing site, three to six weeks end to end. The before-and-after work adds a few days, and it is the difference between a redesign that looks better and one that performs better.

If you would like this done for you, it is what our website redesign service covers. If you are not sure your site needs one at all, start with the signs a business website needs a redesign.