A new website should bring in more business, not less. Yet many redesigns lose traffic after launch because a few critical steps were skipped. Use this website redesign checklist to protect your rankings and launch with confidence.
Before You Start the Redesign
- Benchmark your current site. Record traffic, top pages, rankings and leads from Google Analytics and Search Console so you can measure the new site against them.
- List every URL. Crawl the current site and export every page, including blog posts and PDFs that still get visits.
- Know what already works. Identify the pages that bring in traffic and leads, and plan to keep or improve them rather than delete them.
Before You Launch
- Map your 301 redirects. Every old URL that changes should point to its closest new page. This is the step that protects your rankings the most.
- Carry over your SEO. Keep or improve page titles, meta descriptions, headings and image alt text.
- Test speed and mobile. Check every template on a phone and run it through Google PageSpeed Insights.
- Test every form and tracking tag. Submit each form, and make sure analytics and conversion tracking are installed.
After Launch
- Submit your sitemap in Google Search Console and watch for crawl errors and 404s over the first few weeks.
- Compare against your benchmark and fix any pages that dropped.
A redesign is the best time to improve both how your site looks and how it performs in search. If you’re planning one, our Miami web design team builds every site with SEO and speed in mind from day one. Request a quote to get started.