A redesign is a chance to fix everything that has been bothering you about your website. It is also the moment when businesses most often lose search rankings, break integrations or blow their budget. These twelve points will help you avoid that.
Before design starts
1. Write down the goal. More leads, more sales, a new audience, a rebrand? Every design decision should serve it.
2. Audit what works today. Export your top pages by traffic and conversions so you do not accidentally remove the pages that bring in business.
3. List every integration. Forms, CRM, analytics, booking, payments, chat. Each one needs to be rebuilt or reconnected.
4. Inventory your content. Decide what to keep, rewrite, merge or remove. Content is usually the slowest part of any redesign.
During design and build
5. Design mobile-first. Most visitors arrive on a phone, so design for the small screen and scale up.
6. Keep URLs where you can. Every changed URL needs a permanent (301) redirect from the old address, or you lose the rankings and backlinks it earned.
7. Build performance in. Compress images and video, limit heavy scripts and test on a mid-range phone, not just a fast laptop.
8. Plan structured data and metadata. Titles, descriptions, Open Graph images and schema markup should be part of the build, not a later task.
Before and after launch
9. Test every form and checkout end to end, including the confirmation emails.
10. Check accessibility: keyboard navigation, color contrast, alt text and form labels.
11. Submit your new sitemap to Google Search Console and watch the coverage report for errors in the weeks after launch.
12. Measure against the goal you wrote down in step one, and keep improving.
If you want a team that handles all twelve for you, take a look at our design and development packages or get in touch for a custom quote.