Website redesign checklist: how to redesign without losing traffic

Why redesigns lose traffic

A new design can look better, load faster and still lose visitors. The usual reasons are dull:

• pages that ranked well were removed or merged without a redirect,
• addresses changed, so links from other sites and search listings now lead nowhere,
• useful text was cut because it didn’t fit the new layout,
• page titles and descriptions were reset or left blank,
• the new site was launched with a setting that hides it from search engines.

None of these are about design. They’re about bookkeeping. This checklist is mostly bookkeeping, done before, during and after the redesign.

Phase 1: Decide what the redesign is for

1. Write down the goal in one sentence. “More booking enquiries from phones” is a goal. “Look more modern” is a wish.
2. Note what works now. Which pages bring visitors, which bring enquiries, which do customers mention? You don’t want to redesign those away.
3. Agree who approves what. One person who signs off design, and one who signs off content, saves weeks.
4. Take a full copy of the old site before anything changes, including files and any content stored in a database. See how to back up a website.

Phase 2: Take a content inventory

The inventory is the most important step and the one most often skipped.

1. List every page on the old site. Use the sitemap file if there is one, a crawler tool, or the pages listed in your search tools. Include blog posts, landing pages and PDFs.
2. Record for each page: its address, its title, roughly how many visitors it gets, and whether other sites link to it.
3. Mark each page as keep, improve, merge or remove.
4. Be cautious about removing pages that get visits or links. If a page is out of date but popular, update it rather than delete it.
5. Keep the useful words. If a page ranks for a topic, the new version should still cover that topic, even if the text is rewritten.

A spreadsheet is fine for this. Its columns become your redirect map in the next phase.

Phase 3: Plan addresses and redirects

1. Keep addresses the same wherever you reasonably can. The safest redirect is the one you don’t need.
2. For every address that changes, choose its new home. The closest matching page, not just the home page.
3. Use permanent redirects (often called 301 redirects) so search engines pass the old page’s standing to the new one.
4. Merged pages should all redirect to the page they were merged into.
5. Removed pages with no reasonable replacement should return a proper “not found” page that helps people find their way, rather than redirecting everything to the home page.
6. Avoid chains. If an old address already redirects somewhere, point it straight to the final new address.
7. Write the full redirect map down and check it before launch, not after.

Phase 4: Build and review on staging

Build the new site where nobody can stumble on a half-finished page. A private staging link lets clients and colleagues review the real thing. The case for this is in why check a staging version before you publish.

Review on staging:

• Every kept page exists in the new site with its content, and nothing important has been cut.
• Titles and descriptions are carried over or improved, and unique per page.
• Headings make sense, with one main heading per page.
• Internal links point to new addresses, not old ones that will redirect.
• Images have sensible file sizes and alt text.
• Forms are tested and send to the right inbox.
• Phones: every main page checked on a real phone.
• Speed: the new design is at least as fast as the old one on key pages.
• Analytics and tracking, if used, are installed on the new templates.
• The staging copy is hidden from search engines, and you have a note to make sure the live site isn’t.

Get written approval on the staging version before going further.

Phase 5: Relaunch day

1. Take a final copy of the old site. If something goes badly wrong, you want to be able to put it back.
2. Put the redirects in place at the same moment the new site goes live.
3. Publish the new site to production.
4. Test a sample of old addresses, especially your most visited pages and pages with outside links. Each should land on the right new page in one step.
5. Check the live site can be indexed and loads over https with no warnings.
6. Submit the new sitemap in your search tools.
7. Re-test forms on the live site.

Our website launch checklist covers the launch-day steps in more detail.

Phase 6: After relaunch

Search engines take time to process a redesign. Some movement in rankings during the first few weeks is normal; a steady drop on specific pages usually points to a missing redirect or missing content.

• Week one: look for “page not found” errors in your search tools and server logs, and add redirects for any old addresses you missed.
• Weeks two to four: compare visits to your most important pages with before. If one has dropped sharply, check its redirect and compare its old and new content.
• Month two: review enquiries or sales against the goal you wrote down in phase 1.
• Keep the redirects in place for the long term. Old links on other sites don’t go away.

Redesign checklist at a glance

• Goal written down; approvers agreed.
• Full copy of the old site taken.
• Every old page listed with visits and links.
• Each page marked keep, improve, merge or remove.
• Addresses kept where possible; redirect map written for the rest.
• New site built and reviewed on staging.
• Titles, descriptions, headings and internal links checked.
• Forms, phones and speed checked.
• Written approval received.
• Redirects live at the moment of launch.
• Old addresses spot-checked; sitemap submitted.
• Errors and traffic watched for at least a month.

How Devdwell helps

A redesign is a long stretch of changes that shouldn’t be live yet. In Devdwell, you can publish each round to a private staging link for review while the live site stays exactly as it is, then publish to production when it’s approved. You can make changes in plain words or by clicking the part of the page you mean, with a live preview beside you, and invite the client to that one site to review or edit. Every saved change keeps its history, so it’s easy to see what changed between rounds. If the old site is a folder or zip of files, you can import it and redesign from there.

Questions