Guides
Website redesign checklist: keep the rankings, fix the site
A website redesign should start with goals and a URL map, not a new color palette. Keep pages that rank, add redirects for anything you retire, rewrite the information architecture, then design and build. Launch with redirects, analytics, and a speed pass.
Do this before anyone opens Figma
Most redesigns fail in week one, not week eight. They start with visuals and discover too late that the old /services/mumbai URL was doing real work.
- Write the business goal in one sentence
- Export top landing pages from Search Console and analytics
- List pages to keep, merge, or kill
- Name the content owner on your side
- Decide what “done” means — leads, speed, or both
SEO is a migration, not a plugin
Map every old URL to a new one. Keep titles that already earn clicks unless you have a better query. Recreate metadata, schema, and internal links. Then test redirects on staging, not on launch morning.
Design and build in the open
Prototype the key templates first: home, service, article, contact. Build those, then the rest. Weekly demos catch the “this is not how our sales team talks” problem while it is still cheap.
Launch checklist
The last 72 hours are unglamorous and they are why the redesign works.
- 301 redirects live and sampled
- Search Console and analytics firing
- Forms tested on mobile
- Core pages under a sensible load time
- Handover: repo, CMS, DNS, and a care plan