Website Redesign Checklist: 60 Steps from Audit to Post-Launch

What should a website redesign checklist include?

A complete website redesign checklist includes the commercial work, not only the visual work: goals and baselines, final copy, a URL and redirect inventory, design, build, tracking, launch and a structured review after launch. The 60 steps below are ordered the way we run a redesign, so each phase hands the next one what it needs.

Use it as a working plan. Copy it into your project tool, assign an owner to every line and cross off steps as they ship. If you're still deciding on scope, start with our complete guide to website redesign, and if you're not sure a full rebuild is needed, read website redesign vs refresh first.

Phase 1: How do you audit the current site and set goals?

Start by writing down what the redesign has to achieve and what the current site does today. Without a baseline you can't prove the new site worked, and without a goal every design review turns into a debate about taste.

1. Write one sentence on why you're redesigning and what success looks like.
2. Name one decision-maker who approves copy and design.
3. Export 12 months of traffic, leads and signups by page from analytics.
4. Record the conversion rate of the homepage, pricing page and demo form.
5. Export top queries and landing pages from Google Search Console.
6. List every tool on the site: forms, chat, scheduling, CRM, scripts.
7. Confirm who owns the domain, DNS, hosting and code accounts.
8. Agree on budget, scope and the pages that are in and out.

The baseline work is short but it decides how you'll judge everything later. Our guide to website redesign goals and KPIs explains which numbers to capture and how to compare them after launch.

Phase 2: Which content and copy steps come before design?

Copy comes before design because the words decide the layout. A hero built for a six-word headline breaks when the real one has fourteen words, and a pricing page designed before plans are final gets redesigned twice.

1. Audit every page: keep, rewrite, merge or remove.
2. Interview or survey a handful of recent customers about why they bought.
3. Write the positioning: who it's for, the problem, why you over the alternatives.
4. Draft the sitemap and the job of each page in one line.
5. Write the homepage copy first and get it approved.
6. Write the remaining page copy with headings that match search queries.
7. Collect proof: logos you may use, reviews, numbers you can stand behind.
8. Write FAQ answers for the questions sales hears most.
9. Decide which blog posts and resources move, merge or retire.

Phase 3: What SEO steps do most redesign checklists skip?

The SEO steps most checklists skip are the inventory steps: listing every URL that exists today and deciding where each one goes. Published agency cost guides put redirect and content-migration work at an extra 10 to 20% of a redesign, and many quotes leave it out entirely.

1. Crawl the current site and export every live URL.
2. Add backlinks and Search Console clicks to each URL in the sheet.
3. Mark each URL as keep, change or retire.
4. Build a one-to-one redirect map from old URL to the closest new page.
5. Keep the title, H1 and main content of pages that rank.
6. Plan internal links so no important page loses its links.
7. Record current titles, meta descriptions and structured data.
8. Check how the new platform handles trailing slashes and casing.
9. Plan the XML sitemap and robots.txt for the new site.

For the full method, follow how to redesign a website without losing SEO. If the platform is changing too, the website migration SEO checklist adds the platform-specific checks.

Phase 4: What belongs in the design phase of a website redesign plan?

The design phase turns approved copy into a visual system and page layouts. Design the homepage first because it sets the type, color, spacing and components every other page reuses.

1. Agree on visual direction with two or three explorations, not ten rounds.
2. Design the homepage on desktop and mobile.
3. Build a component library: buttons, cards, forms, navigation, footer.
4. Design the remaining templates from those components.
5. Check color contrast, focus states and readable type sizes.
6. Design empty, error and success states for every form.
7. Plan motion so it supports reading and doesn't slow the page.
8. Get one consolidated round of feedback per template.

Phase 5: Which build steps keep the new site fast and editable?

The build phase is where the design becomes a site your team can edit. Fast pages and a CMS that marketers can actually use matter more here than clever effects.

1. Set up the repository, hosting and a staging site on accounts you own.
2. Build shared components before individual pages.
3. Model the CMS around how your team edits, not how the designer thinks.
4. Add the blog, resources and any other collections.
5. Import content and check every migrated page against the old one.
6. Implement the redirect map on the server or platform.
7. Add titles, meta descriptions, canonicals and structured data.
8. Optimize images and keep third-party scripts to the minimum.
9. Keep staging blocked from search engines.

Phase 6: How do you test tracking and QA before launch?

Test tracking on staging with the same rigor as the design, because a site that looks right but stops recording leads looks like a failed redesign. Rebuilt forms and consent banners are where tracking breaks most often.

1. Write a tracking plan with every event, its name and its owner.
2. Install analytics and tag manager on the new site.
3. Submit every form and confirm the lead arrives in the CRM.
4. Confirm conversion events fire once, not twice.
5. Test the consent banner and check tags respect the choice.
6. Test on real phones, tablets and the main browsers.
7. Run a keyboard-only pass and an automated accessibility scan.
8. Check page speed on key templates.
9. Crawl staging for broken links and missing titles.

Our tracking plan template gives you the event names and ownership columns to fill in.

Phase 7: What happens at launch and after the redesign goes live?

Launch is a short, scripted sequence, followed by a review rhythm that runs for three months. The post-launch steps are what turn a new site into a measured result.

1. Remove the staging noindex and check robots.txt on production.
2. Switch DNS, then test the redirect map with a list of old URLs.
3. Submit the new XML sitemap in Search Console.
4. Watch 404s, crawl errors and form submissions daily for two weeks.
5. Compare traffic and leads against the baseline at 30 days.
6. Fix the pages that lost the most traffic first.
7. Review conversion rate by page at 60 and 90 days.
8. Agree on who owns updates, fixes and new pages after launch.

If numbers fall after launch, our recovery playbook for traffic drops after a redesign walks through the checks in order.

Who should own each step of a redesign project checklist?

Every step needs a person's name next to it, because most redesign delays come from steps nobody owned. When copy, design and code sit with three different vendors, the handoffs between them are where steps get dropped.

If you're comparing quotes, check which of these phases each proposal actually includes. Our breakdown of website redesign cost shows where the money goes.