TheWebsiteRedesignChecklistWeActuallyUse

This is the list we work through on a website redesign specifically. Most redesigns don't fail because a checklist was missing an item; they fail because three specific things got skipped at the start.

3 things you don't want to forget

If you read nothing else:

1. Don't kill pages that are already ranking
2. Make sure analytics and tag tracking carry across so you can still compare before and after
3. Test the contact form end to end after launch (!!)

A form that looks fine but isn't wired up correctly means every inquiry that arrives during the launch window is gone, and you won't find out for weeks. It's the most expensive small mistake in this whole process.

Before kickoff: access

• Google Search Console. This is the only record of what each page currently earns in search
• Google Analytics, and Tag Manager if it exists
• CMS admin, hosting, and whoever controls the domain and DNS
• Whatever the forms connect to: inbox, CRM, marketing automation

A surprising number of SMB sites have none of this set up. No Google Tag Manager, no meaningful analytics, no idea how much traffic they get beyond a general sense that leads are pretty thin. If that's you, install tracking now (if you can), before the project starts. Or have the agency do it as part of the onboarding. Even three weeks of baseline data is better than none, because otherwise you will never be able to prove whether the new site helped.

This is also the part most design-only agencies skip entirely, which is how sites get rebuilt beautifully and end up losing the traffic they already had.

Before kickoff: materials

• All existing content, ideally as text rather than as a list of links
• Images, video, and anything you have the rights to reuse
• Testimonials, case studies, logos, awards, any proof you own
• Brand assets: fonts, colors, logo files, brand guidelines if any

If you don't send these, we'll pull what we can off your current site and do our own research first. But you'll get a better result faster if you hand over the good version of your own material.

Before kickoff: people and decisions

• Name the one person who can approve. The smoother the communication, the faster your project will be.
• List everyone else who will see the work and when, so review time can be built into the schedule rather than discovered halfway through. Sometimes you will need to budget for more time, and push back launch dates, but it's better to be realistic upfront than disappointed later.
• Name who writes the content, with a deadline. This can block an entire project from moving forward.
• Write down what the site is supposed to do, in one sentence, and what number tells you it worked

During the build

• Inventory every existing URL, with its traffic, before anything changes
• Mark the pages that are earning traffic as protected. They can be redesigned; they shouldn't be deleted or gutted
• Agree the sitemap and structure before visual design starts
• Build the redirect map as pages get finalized
• Keep an eye on page speeds. A slow website hurts visitors' mobile data.
• Check that your team can actually edit the pages they'll need to edit, before sign-off rather than after

Launch Day!

• Remove the staging noindex
• Confirm robots.txt isn't blocking the site
• Test the redirect map: every old URL should resolve in one go, and not to the homepage
• Submit the new XML sitemap in Search Console
• Verify analytics and tags are firing on the new site, with the same event names as before where possible
• Submit every form yourself and confirm the message arrives where it's supposed to
• Check the site on a real phone, not just a resized browser window

The first month

Watch Search Console for a spike in 404s and for pages dropping out of the index. Watch your form submissions against last month's. Expect a couple of weeks of noise while search engines recrawl, and treat anything still down after six weeks as a problem rather than a settling period. We've written a fuller guide to protecting search traffic through a redesign. And budget for changes in the month after launch, because real users always find something.

Want us to run this list on your site?

We do this audit before we quote anything, so you'll know what's worth keeping before you commit to a rebuild. See how our website redesign process works.