Website Redesign Checklist: 60+ Steps From Planning to Launch

Short answer: A website redesign goes well when you work through it in order: set goals and record a baseline, inventory your content and URLs, plan pages and redirects, design and build for speed and conversions, test everything before launch, and monitor search and leads afterwards. The steps that protect your search traffic, especially redirects, are the ones most often skipped.

A redesign is a chance to fix everything that has been bothering you about your website. It is also the easiest way to lose rankings and leads you already have, if the details are missed. This checklist covers the whole process, from deciding whether you need a redesign to the weeks after launch.

Use it whether you are doing it yourself, hiring a freelancer or working with an agency. If you are still working out the budget, start with how much a website redesign costs.

Signs it is time to redesign

• The site isn’t easy to use on a phone.
• Pages take more than a few seconds to load.
• It looks noticeably dated next to competitors.
• Your services, prices or team have changed and the site hasn’t.
• You can’t update it without calling someone.
• You get visitors but few calls, forms or bookings.
• It isn’t secure (no HTTPS), or it is built on a platform no longer supported.

Two or three of these is usually enough to justify a redesign.

Phase 1: Goals and baseline

• Write down what the redesign must achieve: more calls, more quote requests, better rankings, easier updates, a new service line.
• Record your current numbers from Google Analytics and Search Console: visits, leads, top pages, top search queries. You need these to judge the result.
• List your top pages by traffic and by leads. These need the most care.
• Note the pages with backlinks from other sites, so their links aren’t lost.
• Make sure you own and can access everything: domain registrar, hosting, analytics, Search Console, Google Business Profile.
• Set a budget and timeline, including hosting and maintenance after launch.

Phase 2: Content and structure

• Inventory every existing page and URL, and decide for each one: keep, improve, merge or remove.
• Plan the new page list: home, a page per main service, service-area or location pages, about, reviews, contact.
• Keep URLs the same where possible. Unchanged URLs need no redirects and carry no risk.
• Create a redirect map: every old URL that changes, matched to its closest new page.
• Decide what content to reuse, rewrite or create.
• Gather the facts customers ask about: pricing ranges, service area, hours, guarantees, licenses, response times.
• Collect your best reviews and real photos of your work and team.

Never redirect old pages in bulk to the homepage. Google’s site move guidance specifically advises against sending many old URLs to one irrelevant page.

Phase 3: Design

• Design for mobile first; most local visitors arrive on a phone.
• Make the main action obvious on every page: call, request a quote or book.
• Put your phone number in the header, tappable on mobile.
• Show trust early: reviews, ratings, years in business, licenses, real photos.
• Keep navigation simple: services, areas, about, reviews, contact.
• Check accessibility basics: readable font sizes, text contrast of at least 4.5:1, descriptive link text, alt text for images, forms that work with a keyboard.
• Stay consistent with your brand: logo, colors, voice.

Phase 4: Content writing

• Open every page with a clear statement of what you do and where.
• Answer customer questions directly, with an FAQ on key pages.
• One main topic per page, with headings that match how people search.
• Unique title and meta description for each page.
• Name, address and phone identical to your Google Business Profile and listings.

Pages written this way also do better in AI answers. See how to get your website cited by ChatGPT and Perplexity.

Phase 5: Build and technical setup

• Fast pages. Aim for Google’s Core Web Vitals targets: Largest Contentful Paint within 2.5 seconds, Interaction to Next Paint of 200 milliseconds or less, and Cumulative Layout Shift of 0.1 or less.
• Compress and size images properly.
• Main content in the HTML, not loaded only by JavaScript, so search engines and AI crawlers can read it.
• HTTPS everywhere.
• Structured data: LocalBusiness or Organization, plus FAQ and service markup where relevant.
• Analytics and conversion tracking for calls, forms and bookings.
• Cookie consent if you have visitors from regions that require it.
• A useful 404 page that links to your main pages.
• XML sitemap generated for the new URLs.

Phase 6: Pre-launch QA

• Test every redirect in the map. Each should go straight to the final page with a permanent 301 or 308 redirect, without chains.
• Remove any “noindex” or password protection left over from the staging site. This is the single most damaging launch mistake.
• Check robots.txt doesn’t block the site or important crawlers.
• Check canonical tags point to each page itself on the live domain.
• Click every link and button and fix anything broken.
• Submit every form and confirm the messages arrive.
• Tap every phone link on a real phone.
• Test on real devices and browsers: iPhone, Android, a laptop.
• Proofread everything, especially phone numbers, addresses and prices.
• Back up the old site so you can roll back if needed.

Phase 7: Launch day

• Point the domain to the new site and confirm HTTPS works.
• Turn redirects on and spot-check your top pages.
• Submit the new sitemap in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
• Use Search Console’s Change of Address tool only if your domain changed. Google says it isn’t needed for changes within the same domain.
• Check analytics is recording visits and conversions.
• Update your Google Business Profile and other listings if any URLs changed.

Phase 8: After launch

• Watch Search Console for errors and 404s daily for the first week, then weekly for a couple of months.
• Expect some temporary movement in rankings. Google notes that visibility may fluctuate during a move; it should settle.
• Compare against your baseline at 30 and 90 days: traffic, leads, top pages, top queries.
• Keep redirects in place for at least a year, ideally permanently.
• Fix what users stumble on: check where visitors drop off and what they search for on the site.
• Keep improving: new reviews, updated photos, fresh content. A website isn’t finished at launch.

The five mistakes that hurt most

1. Forgetting to remove the staging noindex, so the new site drops out of Google.
2. No redirects, or everything redirected to the homepage.
3. Deleting pages that ranked because they looked old.
4. Changing the phone number or address format so it no longer matches your listings.
5. No baseline, so nobody can tell whether the redesign worked.

Want it handled for you?

If you are a local business with a dated site, our $500 website redesign covers this checklist for a five-page site, including redirects and SEO basics, and you see your new homepage before you pay. For larger projects, see web design and development.