The website redesign checklist: Don’t miss a step

15 things you should know about your business website redesign

A well-designed website is crucial for your business to stay relevant and competitive.
According to marketers, website, blog, and SEO efforts have delivered the highest ROI this year, accounting for 16% of overall returns [1]. However, many websites become outdated over time, with design elements that no longer captivate visitors, performance issues that drive away traffic, or lack of mobile-friendly layouts.

A website redesign offers the perfect opportunity to address these issues and breathe new life into your business. But where do you start? With so many elements to consider, it can feel overwhelming. That’s why we’ve put together this comprehensive 15-step checklist to help guide you through the process and ensure a smooth, successful website redesign. Keep reading to discover the essential steps!

1. Identify and document the issues with your website

Thoroughly analyze your current website to identify what’s working and what isn’t. Review key performance metrics like traffic, page load speed, and content engagement. Tools like Google Analytics can help you track user behavior and conversion paths, while heatmaps provide a visual representation of how visitors interact with your pages.

It’s important to document all findings during an initial assessment, including outdated design features, inconsistent branding, and content that no longer reflects your brand’s message or goals. This documentation will serve as a roadmap for your redesign, addressing every issue and driving meaningful improvements.

2. Establish clear goals

Defining specific goals will guide the redesign process and help measure its success once the project is complete. Whether you’re looking to improve user experience by creating a more intuitive interface, increase conversion rates by optimizing key pages, or modernize the brand’s look to stay competitive, having clear objectives ensures that every decision aligns with your company’s vision.

3. Backup and store website files

Back up all of your files to prevent data loss during the redesign process. Files include everything from your database and images to custom content, plugins, and settings. A full backup ensures that if something goes wrong during the redesign, you can easily restore your site to its original state without losing critical information.

There are several ways to back up your website. For WordPress users, plugins like UpdraftPlus or BackWPup allow you to automate the backup process and store your files in the cloud, on external servers, or even download them to an external hard drive. Alternatively, you can perform a manual backup by exporting your database and downloading all website files via FTP.

4. Conduct a competitive analysis

Analyze your competitors’ websites as part of your redesign strategy. This step allows you to spot trends, design features, and SEO tactics that work for them, giving you valuable insights into what drives their success. Look at factors like their user experience, layout, and visual appeal, as well as how they structure their content and optimize for search engines. Pay attention to features like navigation, mobile responsiveness, and conversion elements, as these can provide inspiration for your redesign.

Also, identify what they may be missing: maybe they lack engaging content, or their design is sleek but not user-friendly. These insights will help you differentiate your brand by adopting best practices while filling the gaps they’ve overlooked.

Discover 15 things you should know about your business website redesign

5. Review your brand elements

A website redesign is the perfect opportunity to take a fresh look at your brand’s current assets, such as your logo, color scheme, typography, and tone of voice. Over time, these elements can become outdated or misaligned with your company’s evolving mission and audience. Reviewing these assets allows you to determine whether they still reflect your brand’s identity or if it’s time for a refresh.

Consistency is critical in branding, and your redesigned website should seamlessly incorporate updated brand elements. A cohesive brand presence makes your site more visually appealing and strengthens trust and recognition among your audience.

Learn more:
Brand strategy vs. marketing strategy: Unveiling the key differences for business success

6. Redesign

In the redesign phase, all your planning and analysis come together to shape your new website. It’s essential to ensure that every visual and content element aligns with your brand identity, from the fonts and colors to the imagery and messaging. Consistency across these elements reinforces your brand, creating a cohesive, professional look that resonates with your audience.

A successful redesign also focuses on user experience. Your website should be easy to navigate, with a clear structure and intuitive interface that guides visitors to key content and conversion points. Wireframes and mockups are crucial tools during this process, helping you visualize the new design before development begins.

7. Ensure an SEO plugin is installed

Remember that 88% of consumers turn to search engines when looking for information online [2]. So, by configuring an SEO plugin correctly during your redesign, you set your website up for better rankings, increased organic traffic, and a higher chance of reaching your target audience.

Plugins like Yoast or Rank Math simplify the SEO process by providing step-by-step guidance on improving your content’s visibility. They help you optimize elements such as meta titles, descriptions, and headers, ensuring your pages are structured so search engines can easily understand.

These tools also guide you in using keywords effectively, ensuring they are placed naturally throughout your content, from headings to alt text for images. Additionally, SEO plugins analyze readability, internal linking, and offer suggestions to improve your overall content strategy.

8. Create an XML sitemap

An XML sitemap is a powerful tool that ensures search engines like Google can efficiently crawl and index your newly redesigned website. Serving as a structured roadmap, it highlights all key pages and content, making it easy for search engine bots to navigate your site. This helps ensure no page—especially new or updated content you want to rank—is missed. Many SEO plugins, including Yoast and Rank Math, can automatically generate and maintain an XML sitemap, optimizing your site for search engines.

Discover a comprehensive 15-step checklist to help guide you through the process and ensure a smooth, successful website redesign.

9. Set up Google Analytics and Google Search Console

According to 26% of marketers, leveraging data enhances the ROI of their strategies [1]. Both Google Analytics and Google Search Console provide invaluable insights into your website’s traffic, user behavior, and search performance. Google Analytics tracks visitor interactions, allowing you to monitor key metrics like page views and session durations. With this data, you can better understand how users navigate your site, which pages perform best, and where improvements can be made to enhance the user experience.

Google Search Console, on the other hand, focuses on your website’s visibility in search results. It offers detailed reports on how your site is performing in search engines, including which keywords drive the most traffic and any issues affecting your site’s indexing. By setting up both tools, you’ll gain a comprehensive view of your website’s performance, fine-tuning your SEO strategy and ensuring your new site attracts and engages the right audience.

Learn more:
How to analyze website traffic

10. Optimize content

Ensure each page has an optimized title and meta description—these elements are crucial for search engine rankings and should include your target keywords. Next, review the heading structure of each page. Using heading tags like H1, H2, and H3 helps both search engines and users understand the content hierarchy. Each page should have a clear H1 (the main title), with subheadings (H2, H3) breaking down the content into easily digestible sections.

Additionally, ensure all images are compressed to improve load times and include relevant alt text for better SEO and accessibility. Finally, review the written content to ensure it includes well-placed, naturally integrated keywords that reflect the topics your audience is searching for.

11. Fine-tune your SEO strategy

Start by reviewing your internal linking structure, ensuring that key pages are well-connected, and making navigating your site easy for users and search engines. Strong internal linking improves user experience and helps distribute authority across your website, improving rankings.

If you’ve updated URLs during the redesign, it’s essential to set up 301 redirects to maintain SEO value. Redirecting old URLs to their new counterparts ensures that users and search engines don’t encounter broken links, preserving any SEO equity built by your previous pages. Additionally, ensure that your robots.txt file and meta tags are configured correctly to make all important pages available for search engine crawling.

12. Eliminate orphan pages

Orphan pages are pages on your site with no internal links leading to them, making them difficult for users and search engines to find. Ensure every page on your site is part of a well-structured internal linking system. Each page should link to other related pages and, in turn, be accessible from different parts of the website.

13. Check website performance

Issues like slow-loading pages, broken links, or malfunctioning scripts can negatively impact user experience and hurt your search engine rankings. Slow load times, for example, can lead to higher bounce rates, while broken links frustrate visitors and damage your site’s credibility.

Using tools like Google PageSpeed Insights allows you to analyze your site’s speed and performance. These tools provide actionable insights on how to optimize elements such as image sizes, CSS and JavaScript files, and server response times.

14. Check website mobile responsiveness

Mobile-friendly websites are necessary for successful marketing, delivering a solid ROI of 11% [1]. A responsive website adapts seamlessly to different screen sizes, ensuring that buttons, images, and text are correctly adjusted, regardless of whether users view it on a smartphone, tablet, or desktop.

Also, mobile responsiveness improves user experience and directly impacts your SEO, as search engines like Google prioritize mobile-friendly websites in their rankings. More than 50% of consumers use their phones to search online [2]. Thus, testing your website on various devices and screen sizes helps you identify any design flaws, like misaligned images, hard-to-read text, or buttons that are difficult to tap.

15. Launch with a strong marketing push

Announce the launch across multiple platforms to maximize visibility and engagement. Share the news on your social media channels, using eye-catching visuals and captions highlighting the improvements in the redesign. Create an email newsletter to notify your subscribers, showcasing new features, improved functionality, and how the redesign benefits them.

Additionally, write a blog post detailing the redesign process, your goals, and how the changes will improve the user experience. This step generates buzz and provides transparency, allowing your audience to appreciate the effort behind the transformation.

Ready to get started?
Contact us today for our professional website redesign services!

Sources:
1: 2024 State of Marketing Report | HubSpot
2: The way people search the web is changing | HubSpot

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