The website redesign checklist: protect what you've already built
The most expensive mistake in a website redesign isn't choosing the wrong design. It's throwing away value the current site has quietly accumulated: search rankings, content that answers customers' questions, and URLs other sites link to.
This checklist is how we run every redesign. Work through it before a pixel is designed and you'll keep what your site has earned.
Audit before you delete
Start with evidence, not opinions. Look at your analytics: which pages get visited, which get found through search, which produce enquiries? Those pages are assets. A redesign should keep and improve them. A redesign that deletes them is a pay cut.
If the old site frustrates you, write down exactly why: slow, dated, hard to update, doesn't work on phones. Those are the problems to solve. "It looks old" alone is rarely a good enough reason to burn everything down.
Take stock of your search visibility
If you have Google Search Console, export the queries your site appears for and the pages that receive them. Those pages and phrases are your site's search equity, and the new design must account for every one of them, or you'll quietly lose traffic that took years to build.
Preserve your URL equity
Other websites link to yours. Those links point at specific URLs. If a URL changes, the link must be redirected with a 301 redirect from the old address to the new one. Map every existing page to its replacement in the new site before launch, and redirect anything that moves.
Broken links and vanished pages are the single most common way redesigns lose rankings, and the most preventable.
Do a content inventory
List every page and every piece of content. Sort it into three groups: keep (accurate and useful), rewrite (useful but outdated or weak), and retire (no longer relevant, but redirect its URL). Most sites find their best-performing content is a handful of service pages and answers to customer questions. Protect those first.
Set measurable goals
"A modern website" isn't a goal. Enquiries per month, phone calls, quote requests: decide what the new site should produce and how you'll measure it. A redesign without a target can't be judged a success; it can only be judged a nice new design.
Plan launch day, and the week after
Check the redirects, test the forms on a real phone, verify the site in Search Console, and watch the first week of analytics closely. Small issues caught early cost almost nothing; the same issues found six months later have been costing you enquiries the whole time.