A website redesign works when you decide what is changing and why before any design starts, measure the old site so you can prove the new one is better, and carry over the pages that already earn their keep. This checklist covers those jobs in five stages: goals, content audit, design sign-off, build QA and launch.

A redesign is not always a migration. If your URLs stay put, this checklist is enough. If any URLs move, you also need the SEO website migration checklist for the redirect and Search Console work.

What is changing	What you need
New look, same URLs	This checklist
New look, some URLs change	This and the migration checklist
New domain or platform	Both, split into two steps if you can

Google's site move guidance advises changing one thing at a time. Launching a new design and a new domain together makes it much harder to work out what caused a drop.

Stage 1: Goals and baseline

Owner: project manager. Signed off by: client lead.

☐ Write one sentence on why the site is being redesigned, in business terms.
☐ Set two or three measurable goals, each with a baseline figure and a review date.
☐ Export 12 months of organic clicks, top landing pages and conversions per page.
☐ List your top 20 pages by organic traffic and your top 20 by conversions. These are the pages you protect.
☐ Record mobile Core Web Vitals for those pages: LCP, INP and CLS.
☐ Take full-page screenshots of every template on the old site, because you will want them later.
☐ Ask sales and support which questions customers keep asking that the site does not answer.
☐ Name one person who signs off each stage. Two approvers means conflicting feedback.
☐ Write the out-of-scope list: what this redesign will not change.
☐ Put all of this into a web design brief.

A goal is only useful if you can check it. For a fictional accountancy firm:

Goal	Baseline	Target	Check at
More enquiries	40 a month	55 a month	90 days
Faster mobile homepage	LCP 3.8s	LCP under 2.5s	30 days
Fewer "what do you do" calls	12 a month	5 a month	90 days

Stage 2: Content audit

Owner: content owner. Signed off by: client lead. Every URL gets one decision.

Decision	Use it when	What happens
Keep	It performs and is accurate	Moves across unchanged
Rewrite	Right topic, dated copy	Assign a writer and date
Merge	Several thin pages, one topic	Combine and redirect
Remove	No traffic, links or purpose	Return a 404 or 410
New	A gap customers ask about	Brief it and write it

☐ Export every URL with traffic, backlinks, conversions and last updated date.
☐ Give every URL one of the five decisions above.
☐ Check backlinks before removing anything.
☐ Name a writer and a date against each rewrite.
☐ Write real copy for the homepage and main templates before design sign-off.
☐ Find content that lives outside the CMS: PDFs, embedded forms, calculators.
☐ Set a content freeze date for the old site and tell everyone who edits it.
☐ Decide who moves the content and how images get renamed and compressed.

Designing around placeholder text causes late surprises. A real headline that runs to two lines breaks a hero built for four words, so get real copy in early.

Save countless hours on your projects

Raise tasks in under 3 seconds using our revolutionary widget

Stage 3: Design sign-off

Each deliverable has one person who signs it and a feedback window that goes in the plan.

Deliverable	Signs off	Feedback window
Sitemap and page list	Client lead	3 working days
Wireframes	Client lead	3 working days
Homepage design	Client lead	5 working days
Template designs	Client lead	3 working days
Final copy	Content owner	5 working days

☐ Agree how many revision rounds are included, in writing.
☐ Design mobile and desktop for every template.
☐ Design every state: hover, focus, error, empty and loading.
☐ Test each design with the longest real headline and longest real name.
☐ Design the pages people forget: 404, search results, form confirmation and cookie banner.
☐ Check text against WCAG contrast minimums: 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text.
☐ Watch two or three real customers attempt the main task on a prototype.
☐ Get one consolidated feedback list per round from the client lead.
☐ Get written sign-off against a named design version before development starts.

Stage 4: Build QA

Owner: QA tester. Signed off by: project manager, then the client at UAT.

☐ Build on a password-protected staging site.
☐ Test every template against the signed-off design at the agreed breakpoints.
☐ Test on real browsers and phones as well as a resized desktop window.
☐ Submit every form and confirm each message reaches the right inbox.
☐ Search the whole site for placeholder text, test phone numbers and lorem ipsum.
☐ Add alt text to every meaningful image and compress anything heavy.
☐ Run W3C's Easy Checks for headings, keyboard access and forms.
☐ Compare Core Web Vitals with your baseline. Good means LCP within 2.5 seconds, INP of 200ms or less and CLS of 0.1 or less.
☐ Confirm analytics events and cookie consent work correctly on staging.
☐ Run user acceptance testing with the client against the goals from stage 1.
☐ Log every issue with its page, browser and screen size.

Client feedback is where redesigns tend to stall. A client feedback tool such as QualityHive gives clients one link where they click the thing they want changed and type a comment, with no login or install. Guest links need the Lite plan or above.

Stage 5: Launch

Owner: developer. Signed off by: client lead.

☐ Pick a launch day early in the week, outside your busy season.
☐ Re-sync any content changed on the old site since the freeze.
☐ Set up 301 redirects for any URL that changed.
☐ Remove the staging password and noindex, and check the live robots.txt.
☐ Test the live site: homepage, navigation, forms and checkout.
☐ Confirm analytics is recording on the live domain.
☐ Tell sales and support what changed so customers do not catch them out.
☐ Keep a backup of the old site for at least 30 days.
☐ Put reviews in the diary at 30 and 90 days to check results against your baseline.

The SEO checks redesigns miss

A new design can cost you rankings without a single URL changing. Run these on your top 20 pages before launch.

☐ Compare old and new menus. If a top page has dropped out of the navigation, add internal links back to it.
☐ Compare the old and new copy. If sections were cut, make sure that was a decision and not an accident.
☐ Keep page titles, meta descriptions and H1s on those pages unless you have a reason to change them.
☐ Check structured data still validates on the new templates.
☐ Check content loaded by JavaScript appears in the rendered HTML in Search Console's URL Inspection tool.
☐ Keep headings in a sensible order, since the new layout may have changed which text is a heading.

If organic traffic falls in the first fortnight, compare your top 20 pages one at a time before assuming an algorithm change. Look for rewritten titles, lost copy, missing internal links and any leftover noindex. Fixing those usually needs a content change on a handful of pages, which is far cheaper than rolling the whole design back.

Revolutionise your QA processes

FAQ

How long does a website redesign take?

As a planning assumption, 8 to 16 weeks for a small to medium site. Content and client reviews usually set the pace more than the build does. Our 12-week website project plan shows how the stages fit together.

Will a redesign hurt my SEO?

It can, even with the same URLs, if pages that rank lose copy, internal links or their titles. Protect your top pages, compare old and new before launch, and check results at 30 and 90 days.

Do we need a redesign or a smaller update?

If the structure and content work and the complaints are mostly visual, updating the templates is usually enough. If your goals, audience or platform have changed, plan a full redesign.

Who should sign off a website redesign?

One named client lead for each stage, plus a named content owner for copy. Feedback from other people goes through that lead before it reaches the team.