Website Redesign Checklist: Everything to Check Before, During and After

Most website redesigns fail not because of bad design — they fail because of missing 301 redirects, broken forms, lost SEO rankings, and unclear conversion goals. This checklist walks through every stage of a redesign: planning, design brief, development, testing, and post-launch. Use it whether you are managing the project yourself or working with an agency.

Phase 1: Before You Start — The Discovery and Audit

The most expensive redesign mistakes are made before a single pixel is drawn. A proper discovery phase takes two to four weeks and protects everything you have built.

SEO Audit

Before touching anything, export a complete list of every URL on your current site. Use Google Search Console to identify which pages currently receive organic traffic. Export all indexed URLs from the Coverage report. Record the exact URL structure — slugs, subdirectories, and parameters. Any page that currently ranks or receives traffic must be handled carefully in the redesign. Changing its URL without a 301 redirect will destroy its ranking.

Check which pages have backlinks pointing to them using Google Search Console's Links report. These URLs are especially valuable — losing them means losing ranking power that took months or years to earn.

Content Audit

Map every existing page by: its URL, its current purpose, its organic traffic volume, and whether it should be kept, improved, merged, or deleted. Pages with zero traffic and no inbound links can usually be removed. Pages with good rankings should be kept and improved. Pages with thin or outdated content should be rewritten before migration.

Avoid deleting pages wholesale. A redirect to the closest matching new page is always better than a 404. Even a low-traffic page might have a valuable backlink.

Analytics Baseline

Record your current traffic numbers, bounce rate, average session duration, and conversion rate before you touch anything. You need a baseline to measure whether the redesign improved or hurt performance. Export monthly data for the last 12 months. Screenshot your top-performing pages in Google Analytics. These numbers tell you what was working before the redesign — make sure the new site beats them.

Conversion Audit

Before redesigning, answer these questions: Where do visitors currently come from? Where do they go first? Where do they drop off? How many visitors complete a form, make a call, or take the primary action? What is the current conversion rate? The redesign should aim to improve these numbers, not just update the aesthetics.

Phase 2: Design Brief and Scope

A poor brief leads to a poor outcome. Before any design work starts, define the following in writing.

Business Goals

What specific outcomes should the redesigned site achieve? More enquiries? Better brand perception? Higher conversion rate on a specific landing page? Quantify this if possible: "We want to increase contact form submissions by 30%." Vague goals produce vague designs.

Audience and User Journey

Who visits the site? What are they looking for? What questions do they have before they are ready to contact you? Map the journey a typical visitor takes from landing on the homepage to taking action. The redesign should make this journey shorter and clearer.

Page Structure and Navigation

List every page the new site will have. Group them into navigation categories. Decide which pages are primary (in the main nav) and which are secondary (footer or contextual links). A clear information architecture before design begins prevents expensive restructuring later.

Design Direction

Provide at least three example websites that represent the tone, style, and level of quality you want. Note what you like about each example. Note what you want to avoid. Include your existing brand guidelines if you have them — logo files, color codes, font names. If you do not have brand guidelines, say so — the designer needs to know whether to create a new visual identity or work within an existing one.

Phase 3: During Development

Development is where the SEO groundwork needs to be laid carefully.

URL Structure

Keep all existing URLs the same where possible. If a URL must change, add a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new URL. Build a redirect map before development starts — a spreadsheet with two columns: old URL and new URL. Every page that had traffic, rankings, or backlinks needs a redirect. There are no exceptions.

On-Page SEO

For every page on the new site: write a unique title tag (50-60 characters), write a unique meta description (140-160 characters), include one H1 that matches the page topic, use H2 and H3 subheadings to structure the content, include the target keyword naturally in the first paragraph, and add alt text to all images. Do not leave any page with a duplicate title or empty meta description.

Performance

Compress all images before uploading — use WebP format where supported. Keep JavaScript bundles as small as possible. Avoid loading unused CSS or font weights. Test page load speed on a mid-range mobile device, not just desktop. A page that takes more than 3 seconds to load on mobile will have a high bounce rate regardless of how good the design is.

Phase 4: QA Testing Before Launch

Testing is the most skipped phase in website redesigns — and the most expensive to skip.

Forms and Conversion Paths

Test every form on the site. Fill it in, submit it, and confirm you receive the notification in your inbox. Test on mobile. Test on multiple browsers (Chrome, Safari, Firefox). Check that form submissions are going to the right email address. Check that any CRM or email tool integration is working. A broken form on a new site is a silent lead killer.

Links and Navigation

Check every internal link in the navigation, footer, and body content. Click every button. Check every CTA. Use a link checker tool to catch broken links automatically. Manually click through every page in the main navigation on mobile — check that dropdown menus work, that buttons are large enough to tap, and that no content is cut off on small screens.

Cross-Device and Cross-Browser Testing

Test on iOS Safari, Android Chrome, desktop Chrome, and desktop Safari as a minimum. Check every page at mobile widths (375px, 390px, 414px), tablet width (768px), and desktop (1280px, 1440px). Pay attention to text overflow, image cropping, form field sizing, and button tap targets. The majority of your visitors are on mobile — the mobile experience must be flawless.

Redirects

Before launch, test every redirect in your redirect map. Open each old URL and confirm it redirects to the correct new URL with a 301 status code (not 302). Use a browser extension or tool to check the HTTP status code. A 302 (temporary) redirect does not pass full SEO equity — it must be 301 (permanent).

Phase 5: Launch Day

Launch during a low-traffic period — early morning on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. Avoid Fridays (too close to the weekend if something breaks) and Mondays (high traffic and high urgency). Before pointing the DNS: do a final form test, a final redirect test, and a final speed test. After launch: monitor for 404 errors in real-time, check that analytics is still tracking, resubmit your sitemap in Google Search Console, and check your rankings for key terms 24 hours after launch.

Phase 6: Post-Launch Monitoring

In the first 30 days after launch, monitor your key metrics weekly. Compare traffic, rankings, and conversion rate against the baseline you recorded before the redesign. Watch Google Search Console for crawl errors and Coverage issues. If rankings drop significantly on a specific page, check whether the redirect is working correctly and whether the on-page content is still intact.

Most post-redesign ranking dips are temporary — Google needs two to four weeks to re-crawl a large site. If rankings have not recovered after six weeks, investigate the redirect map and on-page content carefully.

The Redesign Checklist at a Glance

Before you start: export all URLs, record all rankings, map all backlinks, record traffic baseline, audit all content. During design: define goals, map the user journey, list all pages, create redirect map. During development: preserve URLs or add 301 redirects, write all title tags and meta descriptions, compress all images, test page speed. Before launch: test all forms on mobile and desktop, test all links, test all redirects with 301 status codes, test across browsers. After launch: monitor 404 errors, resubmit sitemap, check rankings after 24 hours, compare metrics weekly for 30 days.

A redesign handled this way will improve your site without disrupting what is already working. Skipping any of these steps is how redesigns end up costing twice as much to fix.