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Website redesign checklist

A website redesign checklist for agencies and freelancers who redesign client sites. 70 checks before, during and after the redesign, including the 27 SEO steps that protect what the old site already ranks for.

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  • 70 checks in 10 groups
  • 27 SEO checks in 3 groups
  • Prints to a clean PDF

How to use it.

Changing platform as part of the redesign? See how we run a white label website migration for agencies.

  1. 1Start before design does. Groups A to D decide the sitemap, the URLs and the scope.
  2. 2Give the SEO groups an owner. Groups C, F and I need one person who signs each of them off.
  3. 3Keep it open after launch. Groups I and J run for 90 days. That’s where a redesign is judged.

Site: ______________________   Launch date: __________   Project lead: ________________   SEO owner: ________________

The redesign checklist hands over to the launch checklist at group G.

0 of 70 checked

Groups

Before the redesign

Goals and benchmark

Why the site is being redesigned, and the numbers you’ll judge it by.

Before the redesign

Audit the current site

Find out what the old site does well before you replace it.

Before the redesign

Redesign SEO: URL inventory and redirect map

The first part of the website redesign SEO checklist. Done before design starts, because it shapes the sitemap.

  2. Google: site moves with URL changes

  6. Google: site moves with URL changes

  7. Google: site moves with URL changes

  8. Google: redirects and Google Search

  9. Search Console: Change of Address tool

Before the redesign

Scope, structure and content

What’s being built, who supplies what, and what’s left out.

During the redesign

Design and build

Where the plan meets real content and real screens.

  2. Google: mobile-first indexing

  4. Google: introduction to robots.txt

During the redesign

Redesign SEO: checks on staging

The second part of the website redesign SEO checklist. Everything search engines read, compared with the old site.

  1. Google: title links

  3. Google: site moves with URL changes

  4. Google: how to specify a canonical URL

  5. Google: introduction to structured data

  7. Google: redirects and Google Search

  8. Google: build and submit a sitemap

  10. Google: block indexing with noindex

During the redesign

Pre-launch QA

The last checks on staging, before a date is promised to anyone.

Launch and after

Launch

A short, ordered list for the day of the switch.

  4. Google: build and submit a sitemap

Launch and after

Redesign SEO: monitoring after launch

The third part of the website redesign SEO checklist. Most losses can be won back if you catch them in the first few weeks.

  2. Google: site moves with URL changes

  4. Google: debugging drops in Search traffic

  5. Google: site moves with URL changes

  6. Google: site moves with URL changes

  7. web.dev: Core Web Vitals

Launch and after

Review against the goals

The redesign is finished when you know whether it did what it was for.

Before you call it done

Three things to have on file when the project closes.

Website redesign checklist · studiopartner.co/resources/website-redesign-checklist

Website redesign SEO checklist: the steps that protect rankings.

A redesign changes what search engines read: URLs, content, titles, links and speed. These six steps are the short version of the 27 SEO checks above.

StepWhenWhat to do, and where to read more
Crawl the old site and save the crawlBefore designIt’s the record you compare the new site against, and the starting list for the redirect map. Google: site moves with URL changes
Build a full URL inventoryBefore designAdd the sitemap, analytics, Search Console and backlink data, so pages a crawl can’t reach are included. Google: site moves with URL changes
Map every changed URL to its closest new pageBefore the buildUse permanent, server-side redirects, one step each. Don’t send many old pages to the home page. Google: redirects and Google Search
Keep the titles and content that rankDuring design and buildProtected pages keep their title, headings and text unless the SEO owner agrees a change. Google: title links
Benchmark, then compare on stagingBefore launchCrawl staging and compare it with the saved crawl: canonicals, internal links, structured data and the sitemap. Google: how to specify a canonical URL
Monitor after launchFor 90 daysWatch indexing, 404s and the protected pages each week, and keep the redirects for at least a year. Google: debugging drops in Search traffic

These steps protect what the site already has. Rankings and traffic depend on search engines, competitors and the content itself, so no checklist (ours included) can promise them.

Want the rebuild handled for you?

We rebuild and migrate client sites for agencies and for freelancers who resell, under their name. This is what you sign off, and when.

  • Before the buildThe redirect map. You agree the new URL structure and the map.
  • A full crawl of the current site, archived
  • Every old URL mapped 1:1 to a new one, all 301s
  • No chains, and no mass redirects to the homepage
  • Before launchThe launch checklist. You, or your SEO lead, sign it in writing before any DNS change.
  • Every mapped redirect tested, 301 to 200
  • Titles, descriptions and alt text carried over
  • Every form tested end to end
  • Staging password-protected and never indexable
  • After launchThe post-launch report. You get it in your branding, to send to your client.
  • Launched in your client’s quiet hours, in your time zone
  • The live site crawled on day 1, 7 and 30
  • Anything we built that breaks, fixed under warranty

Official sources linked in the checklist

Redesign checklist questions.

What agencies ask before they replace a client’s site.

All resources Website launch checklist

It’s a list of the steps to take before, during and after a website is redesigned, so the new site keeps what the old one did well. It covers goals and a benchmark, an audit of the current site, scope and content, design and build, launch, and a review against the goals.

It’s the part of a redesign that protects search visibility. Crawl the old site and save the crawl. Build a full URL inventory. Map every changed URL to its closest new page with a permanent redirect. Keep the titles and content of the pages that rank. Compare staging with the old site before launch, and monitor indexing and 404s afterwards. Groups C, F and I of this checklist cover it.

It can, when it changes what search engines read without a plan: URLs that change with no redirect, ranking content that is removed or rewritten, a noindex rule left on from staging. Some movement is normal while Google recrawls the site. Google says a small to medium site can take a few weeks for most pages to move. A redirect map, kept content and monitoring after launch are what limit the risk.

Only where there’s a strong reason. If a URL stays the same, it needs no redirect. Where a URL has to change, send the old one to the closest matching new page with a permanent, server-side redirect, and update internal links to the new address.

Google advises keeping them for as long as possible, and generally for at least one year. Other sites link to the old addresses for much longer than that, so we’d keep them for good.

A redesign changes how the site looks and is organised. A migration moves it to a new platform, host or domain. Many projects do both at once, and then both lists apply: the redirect map and URL inventory count for even more, because a new platform often changes the URL patterns.

For a small site with few pages and no search traffic to protect, groups A, B, D, E, G and H are the core. Add the three SEO groups whenever the current site gets visits from search or has links from other sites.

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Redesigning a client’s site? We’ll rebuild it under your agency’s name, with every old URL mapped.

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