How to prepare for a website redesign

A successful website redesign begins with a clear account of what the organization needs to change. Before choosing layouts, document your audiences, useful existing content, important visitor tasks, internal responsibilities, and technical dependencies. Those decisions shape the design, budget, migration, and launch.

When I plan a redesign, I want to understand both sides of the website: what visitors need to accomplish and what staff need to maintain. A new visual direction should support those practical requirements.

1. Write a brief around the business problem

Describe why the current site needs attention. Perhaps services have expanded, customers cannot find the right product information, or publishing a routine update takes too much effort. Give examples that another person can inspect.

Choose the main audiences and the tasks that matter to each. A corporate prospect may need to assess capabilities and contact the right team. A museum visitor may need exhibition and visit information, while a researcher needs library and collection resources. Our New Canaan Museum & Historical Society project shows these different routes within one institutional website.

Identify what success should look like and how you will observe it. Useful measures might include qualified inquiries, completed applications, product purchases, or staff completing a publishing task. Set a baseline wherever the current site provides reliable data.

2. Inventory content and important URLs

List the current pages, downloadable files, image libraries, forms, and content types. Mark each item for retention, revision, consolidation, or retirement. Record who owns it and whether the organization has usable source files.

Review search and analytics information alongside that inventory. A page with an unremarkable design may still answer an important customer question or attract relevant visitors. Record useful landing pages and externally linked resources before changing their addresses.

A simple content sheet can contain the current URL, proposed destination, audience, owner, required work, and approval status. It also exposes missing copy and unresolved decisions early enough to plan for them.

3. Define the editing workflow

Ask staff to demonstrate a real update: adding a project, changing a team biography, publishing an event, or introducing a product. Note the fields, images, relationships, and approvals involved.

For Elizabeth Eakins, the website connects a collection-led public experience with custom tools for uploading patterns, organizing collections, and building pages. This is the kind of operational requirement that belongs in the brief from the beginning.

Agree which content staff can edit directly, which layouts should remain consistent, and what training is needed. Include the people who will use the system after launch in the review process.

4. Identify systems, access, and ownership

Record the domain registrar, hosting, content management system, email provider, analytics, forms, payment services, and other integrations. Identify the person responsible for each account. Access should be arranged through the provider’s supported permission controls.

For each integration, describe the information exchanged and the expected result. “Send a new inquiry to our CRM and notify the sales coordinator” is a more useful requirement than “add a CRM integration.” Include the failure case: who notices if the information does not arrive?

Where a project involves customer accounts or ordering, document the rules before estimating implementation. The B2B portal planning guide covers company accounts, delivery locations, pricing, and staff review.

5. Agree on scope and review responsibilities

Identify one person who can consolidate feedback and confirm decisions. Other stakeholders can contribute expertise, but the project needs a clear route to an approved answer.

• Content owners confirm factual accuracy and prepare missing material.
• The project lead coordinates feedback, decisions, and deadlines.
• Operational staff review forms, editing tools, and business workflows.
• The design and development partner translates approved requirements into the website and documents the checks.

The proposal should define deliverables, exclusions, review stages, and the process for changing scope. Content preparation and internal approvals need realistic time in the schedule. Our published website budgets provide an initial point of reference.

6. Prepare the migration and launch checks

Keep useful URLs where practical. When a page moves, map its old address to the relevant replacement and test the redirect. Update internal links and review canonical URLs, sitemap entries, and indexing settings. Google’s site-migration guidance explains these search considerations and the normal possibility of ranking fluctuations while changed URLs are processed.

Review the new site in a controlled preview environment. Agree when content will be frozen, how changes made during the build will be reconciled, and who approves the final launch. Keep a recovery route for the preceding version.

Test the actual tasks the brief identified. For an inquiry, follow the journey from the form through confirmation and receipt by the correct person. For a purchase or booking, review the full workflow using an agreed test procedure. Also check mobile layouts, keyboard access, image loading, links, error messages, and editing permissions.

7. Review the published website

Repeat the critical checks on the public site after launch. A preview pass does not establish that production email, redirects, caching, analytics, or integrations are working.

Monitor indexing, search landing pages, completed inquiries, and staff feedback over comparable periods. Keep a short list of observed issues with the affected URL, reproduction steps, and expected behavior. That creates a practical basis for refinement and ongoing support.

Bring your initial brief to a project conversation, or explore how I approach website redesign services.