# Website redesign checklist: what to do before, during and after

> A step-by-step website redesign checklist for small businesses: setting goals, auditing what works, protecting rankings, content, testing and the first weeks after launch.

- Source: https://nerdsharks.com/blog/website-redesign-checklist
- Publisher: Nerdsharks (Exeter, Devon, UK)
- Updated: 2026-09-26

**Short answer:** Before a website redesign, record your current traffic, rankings and enquiries, list every page and what it earns, and set clear goals. During it, rewrite content for customers, keep or redirect every URL and test on phones. After launch, check redirects, forms, tracking and Search Console daily for the first fortnight, then compare results against your baseline.

Published 2026-09-26. 10 min read. Category: Website advice.

A website redesign should make a business more money. Too often it just makes the site look different, and sometimes it makes things worse: enquiries dip, Google rankings slide, and the old contact form that quietly worked is replaced by one that does not.

Nearly all of those problems are avoidable with a bit of preparation. This website redesign checklist covers what to do before, during and after a redesign, for a small local business or a larger company. Use it whether you are doing it yourself or working with a designer.

## Before: decide why you are redesigning

“It looks dated” is a fair reason, but on its own it leads to a prettier version of the same problems. Write down what you want the new site to change. Useful goals are specific and measurable:

- More enquiries, calls or bookings from the same traffic.
- Ranking for services or areas you currently do not appear for.
- Fewer time-wasting enquiries through clearer prices and scope.
- Being able to update the site yourself.
- Faster, mobile-friendly pages that pass Core Web Vitals.
- Supporting a new service, location or business direction.
- Getting off a platform or contract that no longer suits you.

## Before: record your baseline

You cannot tell whether the new site is better unless you know how the old one performed. Before anything changes, collect and save:

- Monthly visits and top pages from your analytics for the last 12 months.
- Search queries, clicks and top pages from Google Search Console, exported to a spreadsheet.
- Enquiries, calls and bookings per month, however you count them.
- Rankings for your ten most important searches, noted by hand if you have no tool.
- Your Google Business Profile insights, since website changes can affect it.
- A full list of every URL on the old site, from your sitemap or a crawl tool.
- A complete backup of the old site, kept safely after launch.

> Export Search Console data before launch. It is the best record of which old pages Google valued, and you will want it when checking redirects.

## Before: audit what already works

Some pages on your old site are quietly doing a lot of work: a service page that ranks well, a blog post that brings in visitors every month, a pricing page people read before calling. Identify them from your analytics and Search Console exports and mark them as “keep and improve”, not “start again”.

Also list what customers ask about most on the phone. Those questions are gaps the new content should fill.

Look at the old site’s weak spots with the same care. Which pages have visitors but no enquiries? Where do people drop off? Which services do you want more of but barely mention? A redesign is the cheapest moment to fix these, because everything is being rewritten anyway. Write the findings into the brief so the designer is solving real problems rather than just restyling.

## During: content and structure

- Plan the page list first: homepage, one page per main service, area pages where relevant, about, reviews or work, prices, contact.
- Write or rewrite the words before the design is finished, so the design fits the content rather than the other way round.
- Keep the content that ranks. Improve it, but do not throw away the topics and phrases Google already associates with you.
- Map every old URL to its closest new equivalent in a spreadsheet: old address, new address, and whether it stays the same or needs a redirect.
- Write titles and meta descriptions for every page.
- Collect real photos and up-to-date reviews.
- Check the legal basics: business details, privacy notice, cookie setup, accessibility.

## During: design and build

- Design mobile first. Most small business visitors arrive on phones.
- Put the main call to action in the first screen of every key page.
- Keep URLs the same wherever you sensibly can; it removes most migration risk.
- Build on a staging address that search engines cannot index.
- Compress images and check page speed before launch, not after.
- Set up analytics and conversion tracking on the new site in advance.
- Build to WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility from the start.

## Launch day checklist

**Website redesign launch-day checks**

| Check | How | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Redirects work | Test a sample of old URLs, including the top 20 from Search Console | Broken redirects lose rankings and visitors |
| Search engines allowed | Check the site is not set to “noindex” or blocked in robots.txt from staging | A leftover staging block can remove a site from Google |
| HTTPS everywhere | Load http, https, www and non-www versions | Every version should end up at one secure address |
| Forms deliver | Send a test from every form, on a phone | Silent form failures are the costliest bug |
| Phone links dial | Tap every phone number on a mobile | Calls are the main action for many businesses |
| Tracking fires | Check analytics shows your own test visit and conversion | Otherwise you cannot compare with the baseline |
| Sitemap submitted | Submit the new XML sitemap in Search Console | Helps Google find the new structure quickly |
| Business details | Check phone, address and hours match your Google Business Profile | Mismatches confuse customers and search engines |

## After: the first eight weeks

Some movement in rankings after a redesign is normal while Google recrawls the site. What matters is the trend and whether errors are being fixed. For the first two weeks, check Search Console every few days for crawl errors, pages returning 404 and pages dropping out of the index, and fix any missing redirects as you find them.

After four to eight weeks, compare traffic, rankings and, most importantly, enquiries against your baseline. If a page that used to bring visitors has dropped away, compare the old and new versions: often useful content or a key phrase was removed in the rewrite.

Keep redirects in place for the long term. Google’s own guidance is to keep them for at least a year, and ideally indefinitely, because old links elsewhere on the web keep pointing to the old addresses.

## The one-page redesign checklist

A redesign is the moment most businesses either gain or lose ground in search, and it is mostly down to process. When Nerdsharks redesigns a site, the URL map and redirects are agreed before launch, so the new site starts with everything the old one had earned.

- Written goals for the redesign.
- Baseline exported: analytics, Search Console, enquiries, rankings.
- Full list of old URLs and a backup of the old site.
- Pages that work identified and kept.
- Content written before design is final.
- Every old URL mapped to a new one or kept the same.
- Built on a non-indexed staging site.
- Speed, accessibility and mobile checked before launch.
- Launch-day checks completed.
- Search Console monitored for eight weeks and results compared with baseline.

## Questions

### Will a website redesign affect my Google rankings?

A website redesign can affect Google rankings, up or down. Rankings usually hold or improve if you keep valuable content, keep URLs the same or redirect them properly, and keep the site crawlable. Drops usually come from missing redirects, removed content or a staging “noindex” left on after launch.

### How often should a business redesign its website?

There is no fixed schedule, but many businesses find their website needs a substantial refresh every three to five years as technology, devices and their own services change. A site that is kept updated steadily may need a full redesign less often than one left untouched.

### Should I change my URLs when redesigning?

Keep your existing URLs wherever they still make sense, because it removes most of the risk of losing rankings. If you must change them, redirect every old URL permanently to its closest new equivalent, and keep those redirects in place for the long term.

### What should I do with old blog posts in a redesign?

Keep old blog posts that bring visitors or links, and update them if they are out of date. Merge thin posts on the same topic into one better article and redirect the old ones to it. Delete only posts with no traffic, no links and no value, and redirect them to a relevant page where possible.

### How long does it take for rankings to settle after a redesign?

Rankings usually settle within a few weeks to a couple of months after a redesign as Google recrawls and reprocesses the site. Larger sites and domain changes can take longer. Monitor Search Console closely in the first weeks and fix errors quickly to shorten the disruption.

## Sources

- Site moves with URL changes, Google Search Central, 2026: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/site-move-with-url-changes
- Redirects and Google Search, Google Search Central, 2026: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/301-redirects
- Web Vitals, Google (web.dev), 2026: https://web.dev/articles/vitals