All marketing guides / Website redesign checklist
A website redesign checklist should protect the parts of your site that already work while improving the pages, content and customer paths that need attention. Before changing the design, define the problem, record the current pages and agree on what must still work at launch.
A redesign is not automatically the answer to weak lead generation. You may need a clearer offer, a repaired form or better follow-up instead. Start with the website lead checklist if you are unsure where visitors get stuck. This guide focuses on planning and checking a redesign once there is a useful reason to do one.
1. Give the redesign a specific purpose
Write the problem in language your team can test. “The website needs to be modern” expresses a preference, but it does not define a completed project. “Phone visitors cannot find the service details and inquiry route” gives you a path to inspect before and after the work.
Choose the pages and tasks involved. These might include explaining a new service, making important information easier to find, improving readability or replacing an unsupported website setup. Keep the business objective separate from the visual references you like.
Record any available baseline evidence. Useful examples include customer questions, broken links, difficult mobile tasks and real inquiry records. If reliable analytics does not exist, say so and use what you can verify. Do not invent a conversion rate to justify the project.
2. Use the website redesign checklist to inventory the site
List the public pages, important files and customer actions before changing anything. Include articles, landing pages used by active advertisements, contact forms and links that appear in profiles or printed material.
For each important URL, record its purpose and what will happen to it:
| Current item | Decision to make | Evidence to keep |
|---|---|---|
| Main service page | Keep, revise or merge | Offer, URL and useful content |
| Marketing article | Preserve or update | Links, title and subject |
| Contact form | Retain or replace | Fields, delivery route and confirmation |
| Campaign landing page | Keep or deliberately replace | Active traffic sources and promised offer |
| Download or policy page | Preserve its access path | Current link destinations |
Keep the owner of each decision visible. A designer should not have to guess whether an old-looking page is still used by a campaign or customer process.
If content is being retired, decide where its readers should go. Redirecting every old page to the homepage may leave people without the information they requested. Preserve a useful equivalent destination where one exists.
3. Plan the content before the layout
For each key page, write its subject, main customer question, supporting detail and next action. Then choose a layout that presents that information in a sensible order. Filling a finished design with vague copy usually makes the site harder to evaluate.
Use the brand messaging checklist to check scope, benefits and supported claims. Keep real contact details and service terms accurate. Identify who approves copy and where missing information will come from.
Preserve useful material when it still serves the reader. A redesign does not require removing an article, replacing every image or changing every URL. Give each proposed change a purpose rather than treating novelty as the goal.
4. Protect URLs, metadata and search access
Keep existing URLs when there is no useful reason to change them. When a URL must move, map it to the most relevant new destination and check the redirect. Google’s redirect documentation explains permanent redirects for pages that have moved permanently.
Google’s site-migration guidance also covers URL mapping, internal links and redirects. A visual redesign without URL changes is different from a migration, but it still needs a publication check.
Review page titles, descriptions, canonicals and indexing settings on the new site. A staging environment may intentionally discourage indexing; those settings should not be carried into a public launch accidentally. Check the actual public response after release rather than assuming that the editor’s settings prove what crawlers receive.
Keep useful internal links pointing directly to their intended destinations. Update navigation and article links when paths change. Confirm that the public sitemap contains the pages you intend to make discoverable.
5. Website redesign checklist: test on a phone
Use a small viewport and follow the same tasks a potential customer would attempt. Open the menu, find a service, read the important information and reach the contact route. A desktop screenshot does not establish that those tasks work on a phone.
Look for text that requires excessive zoom, controls that are hard to select, content covered by a fixed panel and tables that push the whole page sideways. Check the behavior of menus and buttons as well as their appearance.
Allow images to scale while reserving their proportions. Keep useful alt text for informative images. Review visible focus states, the heading structure and meaningful link labels. These checks help readers use the site instead of merely viewing it.
For forms, use persistent labels and understandable instructions. W3C’s form-label guidance explains how labels identify controls. A placeholder that disappears while someone types should not be the only way a field is identified.
6. Test the inquiry path end to end
With the business’s approval, submit clearly labeled tests through the intended form and verify the saved record, notification and response route. Test successful and failed submissions separately. A button press should not be counted as a valid lead when validation or delivery fails.
Check phone and email links, appointment destinations and downloads. If a third-party tool is involved, confirm who owns its account and whether the public website uses the correct destination. Record which checks were performed and who can repeat them.
Use the lead follow-up process to verify what happens after delivery. A redesigned form still needs an owner, a useful response and a next action.
7. Make the launch and rollback plan explicit
Agree on who releases the site, when the change occurs and who can restore the previous version if a critical task fails. Preserve a usable backup and confirm that the people involved know how restoration works.
Write a launch checklist that names the important checks, rather than a general instruction to review the site. Include public page access, navigation, forms, redirects, mobile tasks, analytics configuration and any active campaign destinations.
Decide what requires immediate repair or rollback. A broken inquiry route or missing service page is more consequential than a minor spacing preference. Keep those priorities clear so the launch team can act promptly without debating every visible difference.
8. Website redesign checklist: review the live launch
Open the clean public URLs while logged out and compare them with your checklist. Check a fresh response as well as the browser’s existing view when caching may be involved. Verify that the published page matches the approved copy and that the intended image metadata and styles are present.
Use Search Console and analytics when the business has appropriate access and an established implementation. Review indexing problems, important traffic paths and accepted inquiries. Treat a reporting change carefully: a missing or duplicated tag can change the numbers without changing customer behavior.
Make a short repair list with the issue, affected page, evidence, owner and priority. Repeat the relevant check after each repair. A redesign is complete when the agreed customer tasks and publication requirements work, not simply when the editor says the page was saved.
Questions to ask before approving a redesign
- Which business problem and customer task will the project improve?
- Which pages, forms, images and URLs are included?
- Who provides and approves the content?
- How will existing links and changed URLs be handled?
- What mobile, accessibility and inquiry checks will be recorded?
- Who owns the website, accounts and maintenance after launch?
- What is the release and restoration plan?
Use those questions alongside the website redesign checklist when comparing proposals. A clear scope and checkable launch criteria make it easier to evaluate what is actually being delivered.
MOFO offers website design, development and conversion support. Contact MOFO to discuss the pages and customer paths you want to improve, or return to the marketing guides.