[ Guide ]
Website redesign checklist: keep your rankings and leads
A redesign is the most common way businesses lose search traffic they spent years earning, and it is almost always avoidable. This checklist covers what to do before, during and after the switch.
Before you start: record what works today
You can’t protect what you haven’t measured. Before any design work:
- Export every URL on the current site, and note which pages bring search traffic and enquiries.
- Record where you rank today for the searches that matter to you.
- Save analytics and Search Console figures so you can compare after launch.
- Run a speed and quality check (our free website grader does this) to know where you start.
Plan the content, not just the look
Decide which pages stay, which merge and which go. Pages that bring traffic should keep their content and, ideally, their address. Improve them, but don’t remove what is ranking.
Map every old URL to a new one
Every address that changes needs a permanent (301) redirect to the closest new page. Never send everything to the home page; search engines treat that like a missing page.
Carry over the search basics
These are easy to lose when a site is rebuilt:
- Page titles and meta descriptions for every page
- Headings, alt text and internal links
- Structured data for your business, services and FAQs
- A new sitemap, submitted in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools
Launch day
Before you announce anything:
- Check that the new site isn’t blocking search engines (a common leftover from staging).
- Test redirects for your most important old URLs.
- Submit every form and confirm the email arrives.
- Confirm analytics is recording visits.
The first weeks after launch
Watch Search Console for crawl errors and pages dropping out of the index, and fix broken links as they appear. Some movement in rankings right after a redesign is normal; a steady decline is a sign something was missed.
Common questions
- Will a redesign hurt my SEO?
- Not if old URLs are redirected, content that ranks is kept, and search basics are carried over. Most traffic lost after a redesign comes from skipping those steps.
- Should I change my URLs during a redesign?
- Only when there is a clear reason. If you do, add a 301 redirect from every old address to its new one.
- How do I know if my site needs a redesign?
- Common signs are a slow site on mobile, a message that no longer fits your business, and few enquiries despite visitors. The free website grader is a quick place to start.
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