Website redesign checklist: what to audit, keep and protect before you relaunch

The short answer

Phase 0: Decide what the redesign is for

Most redesigns start with the site looks dated. That is a reason to start, not a goal. Before anyone opens a design tool, write down three things:

• The buyer. Who should the new site convince? If that has changed since the last build, say so.
• The one action. What should a qualified visitor do? For most sales led B2B companies it is booking a call.
• Where the traffic comes from. Search, referrals, paid, or outbound (cold email and LinkedIn). A site that mostly receives outbound clicks has a different job from one that mostly receives search visitors: it has to confirm, in seconds, what the outreach promised.

Phase 1: Audit what you have

You cannot protect what you have not listed. Build a simple spreadsheet before you change anything.

Pages and URLs

• Export every live URL (from your CMS, your sitemap, or a crawler).
• Mark each one: keep, merge, rewrite or retire.
• Note any URL that appears in email signatures, outreach templates, ads, social profiles, printed material or partner sites. Those links will break if the URL changes.

What brings traffic and leads

• From your analytics, list the pages that receive the most visits and the pages visitors see before they submit a form or book a call.
• From Google Search Console (or your search tool of choice), list the pages and queries that already earn impressions and clicks.
• Flag every page on both lists as protect. These pages need a deliberate plan, not a guess.

Record a baseline

• Note current numbers for your protect pages: monthly visits, form submissions and booked calls.
• Note the queries those pages appear for in Search Console, and their average position.
• Run a page speed test on the homepage and your top landing pages.
• Save screenshots of key pages. Once the old site is gone, it is hard to remember what worked.

Without a baseline, nobody can say after launch whether the redesign helped or hurt.

Content worth keeping

• Case studies, testimonials and client logos you have written permission to use.
• Answers to questions buyers ask on sales calls (these often make the best FAQ content).
• Anything legal or compliance needs on the site: privacy policy, terms, cookie notice.

Forms, tracking and integrations

• Every form, where it sends data, and who gets notified.
• The booking link and the calendar behind it.
• Analytics, tag manager, pixels and any chat or CRM connection.

Phase 2: Protect your search visibility

A careless redesign can undo rankings you spent years earning. A careful one keeps them.

Keep or redirect every URL that matters

• Keep the same URL for any protect page whose topic is not changing.
• Where a URL must change, map old to new and plan a permanent (301) redirect for each one.
• Do not send every old URL to the homepage. Redirect each one to its closest match.
• Ask your provider who builds the redirect map and who implements it. Get the answer in writing; it is often left out of quotes.

Carry over what search engines read

• Page titles and meta descriptions for pages that already perform (improve them, but do not throw them away).
• Headings and the core content that matches the queries in your Search Console list.
• Structured data (schema) that exists today, such as Organization, FAQ or Article markup.
• Image alt text on important pages.

Avoid the classic launch mistakes

• Make sure the new site is not blocked from indexing (staging settings like noindex or a blocking robots.txt are often left on by accident).
• Give every new page its own self referencing canonical tag, and check it after launch.
• Submit an updated XML sitemap that lists every new URL.

Phase 3: Plan the new site

Structure

• Decide the pages before the design. For most sales led B2B companies, a focused site of up to 7 pages covers the essentials: home, offer, proof, how it works, about, pricing or what is included, and contact or booking.
• Give every page one job and one main call to action.

Copy

• Decide who writes it. Copy can hold up a redesign for weeks when it is left to the client. With SmartDesign, copywriting is included.
• Rewrite for the buyer you named in Phase 0, not for the company history.

Brand

Decide whether you are keeping your current brand or changing it. A redesign applies a brand; it does not have to create one. If you need a new logo or identity, SmartDesign offers logo and branding as an add on starting at $500.

Language

List every language the site needs. SmartDesign builds in any language, including Hebrew and other right to left languages.

Phase 4: Review and launch

Feedback

• Name one decision maker for sign off.
• Consolidate comments into one document per round.

Pre launch QA

• Click every link and button, including the booking link.
• Submit every form and confirm the data arrives where it should.
• Check every page on a phone.
• Test every redirect in your Phase 2 map.
• Confirm analytics and any tracking fire on the new pages.
• Check titles, meta descriptions, canonicals and schema on the protect pages.

Phase 5: The first 30 days after relaunch

• Watch Search Console for new crawl errors and 404s, and fix them quickly.
• Compare traffic and form submissions on your protect pages with the weeks before launch.
• Update outreach templates, email signatures and social profiles with any changed URLs.
• Re run your page speed tests and compare them with the baseline you recorded in Phase 1.
• Confirm every new URL appears in the sitemap and is being indexed, and that each one shows its own canonical.
• Decide who handles hosting, security, backups and small edits from now on.

With SmartDesign, the optional care plan covers that last item: $199/month (3 month minimum) for hosting (SSL, uptime), security, backups, a monthly report, an SEO health check, 1 hour of edits a month and 10 backlink submissions a month. Extra edits are $100/hour, requested by email and handled within 5 business days.

Five redesign mistakes this checklist prevents

How a SmartDesign redesign runs

A redesign with SmartDesign follows the same fixed process as a new build. There is one kickoff call, and the 2 week clock starts there. We write the copy, design and build the new site with SEO setup included, then you get two revision rounds: written feedback first, then a one hour live session. The site is built in the design studio and hosted on SmartConvert, and you receive a full zip of it. A CMS for editing content yourselves is optional (+$500).

Bring your Phase 1 spreadsheet to the kickoff call, especially your list of important URLs, and ask us how each one will be handled.

Redesigning soon?

Bring your current site to a free 15 minute WebSite Meeting. We will look at what to keep, what to rebuild and how a 2 week SmartDesign redesign would work for you.