A website redesign should make the business clearer, more credible and easier to deal with.
It should not accidentally remove the pages, search visibility or enquiry routes that were already doing useful work.
That is why a good redesign begins with an audit, not a homepage mock-up. Use this checklist before design starts, during the build and immediately after launch.
1. Decide what the redesign is supposed to fix
“Make it look more modern” is a valid observation, but it is not enough to guide a project. Go one level deeper.
Perhaps the business has moved upmarket but the website still feels small. Perhaps services have changed and customers struggle to understand what you now offer. Perhaps traffic arrives but nobody enquires. Perhaps the site is difficult to use on mobile. Perhaps the current platform makes simple changes unnecessarily difficult.
Write down the real problem first. It gives every later design decision something useful to answer.
If the concern is a quiet inbox, start by working out why visitors are not making contact. A traffic problem and an enquiry problem need different responses.
2. Record what already works
Before removing anything, identify what is valuable. Look at:
- pages receiving organic traffic
- pages generating enquiries
- pages with useful backlinks
- search queries already producing impressions or clicks
- service pages customers regularly use
- existing forms and contact routes
- downloadable documents people rely on
Old does not automatically mean bad. A redesign should preserve useful assets unless there is a clear reason to replace them.
3. Create a complete URL inventory
List every live URL on the current site. Then classify each page as Keep, Improve, Merge, Remove or Redirect.
This step is especially important when the new website changes page structure. Google’s site-migration guidance recommends creating a mapping between old and new URLs, using redirects correctly and updating internal links and sitemaps after a move.
4. Protect existing search intent
Do not redesign useful pages around aesthetics alone. If a service page currently answers a specific search well, the replacement still needs to answer that search.
Clear language usually beats clever language here.
5. Rework the hierarchy before polishing the interface
A redesign is the right time to ask whether visitors can immediately understand what the company does, distinguish one service from another and move from the homepage to useful detail without guessing.
This is where semantic structure matters. A site should have an understandable hierarchy before visual styling is applied.
6. Make mobile a design problem, not a resizing problem
Desktop and mobile users often encounter the same information differently. Navigation, headings, image crops, touch targets, content order and contact routes need deliberate consideration on smaller screens.
Do not approve desktop designs and assume mobile will sort itself out later.
7. Check accessibility while the system is being designed
Review:
- colour contrast
- keyboard navigation
- visible focus states
- heading hierarchy
- alternative text
- form labels
- readable text size
- link clarity
- touch target sizes
WCAG 2.2 is a W3C Recommendation and provides a useful reference for modern website accessibility. Our guide to accessibility for UK businesses explains how these considerations translate into practical design decisions.
8. Preserve performance
A visually richer website should not automatically become a heavier website. Pay attention to oversized images, unnecessary video, webfont loading, third-party scripts, animation, layout shifts and unused JavaScript.
Use our Core Web Vitals guide to understand loading, responsiveness and stability without treating a single laboratory score as the whole picture.
9. Recheck the calls to action
Every important page should have a clear next step. That does not mean covering the page in buttons. It means deciding what action makes sense after the information somebody has just read.
10. Test every form properly
Submit it. Confirm validation works, the message arrives, the reply-to address works, the confirmation message makes sense, mobile input is comfortable and analytics records the action if required.
11. Check UK company information
For UK limited companies, basic registered company details should be included correctly on the website. Check the GOV.UK guidance on company information. Treat this as launch QA rather than an afterthought.
12. Create a pre-launch baseline
Record organic clicks and impressions, important rankings, enquiry numbers, conversion actions, indexed pages, Core Web Vitals and top landing pages. Without a baseline, it is difficult to know whether the redesign improved anything.
13. Crawl and test the new site before launch
Look for broken links, missing pages, incorrect redirects, duplicate titles, missing metadata, accidental noindex directives, incorrect canonicals, missing images, broken forms and responsive layout issues.
14. Watch the site after launch
Check Search Console, analytics and real enquiry delivery after launch. Pay particular attention to URLs that changed.
The principle behind the whole checklist is simple: What should become better, and what must not become worse?