Website Redesign Checklist: 15 Things to Check Before You Launch

Don't Launch Until You've Checked These

A website redesign is exciting, but launching with problems can hurt your Google rankings, frustrate customers, and waste the investment you've made. This checklist covers the issues we see most often.

Print this out, tick each item off, and launch with confidence.

Technical Foundations

1. Set Up 301 Redirects for Changed URLs

This is the single biggest mistake businesses make during a redesign. If your old page was at `/services/plumbing` and the new one is at `/plumbing-services`, anyone with a bookmark or a Google result pointing to the old URL will get a 404 error.

Action: Map every old URL to its new equivalent. Set up 301 (permanent) redirects. Test each one.

2. Check All Internal Links

Click through every page on your new site. Every link should go somewhere valid. Broken internal links frustrate visitors and hurt SEO.

Tools: Use Screaming Frog (free for up to 500 pages) or Ahrefs Site Audit to find broken links automatically.

3. Test Your Contact Forms

• The submission goes through
• You receive the notification email
• The thank you page or message displays correctly
• Auto-replies work (if you have them)

4. Verify SSL Certificate

Your site should load with HTTPS (the padlock icon in the browser). Mixed content warnings (where some elements load over HTTP) are common after redesigns.

Quick test: Open Chrome DevTools → Console tab → look for mixed content warnings.

5. Check Mobile Responsiveness

• Text is readable without zooming
• Buttons are tappable with a thumb
• Forms work on mobile keyboards
• Images don't overflow the screen
• Navigation menu works on touch

SEO Essentials

6. Preserve Your Page Titles and Meta Descriptions

If your old pages had good titles and descriptions that ranked well, keep them. A redesign is about improving design and functionality - not rewriting SEO copy that's already working.

7. Keep Your H1 Structure Clean

Every page should have exactly one H1 tag (your main heading). H2s for subheadings. Don't skip levels (H1 → H3). This structure helps Google understand your content.

8. Submit Your New Sitemap

Generate a fresh XML sitemap and submit it through Google Search Console. This tells Google about your new URL structure and helps pages get indexed faster.

9. Check Your robots.txt

Make sure your robots.txt file isn't accidentally blocking search engines from crawling your new site. This happens more often than you'd think - especially if a "noindex" tag was used during development and not removed.

10. Test Page Load Speed

Run your new site through PageSpeed Insights. Your new site should be at least as fast as your old one. If it's slower, optimise images and review your hosting.

Content and Functionality

11. Proofread All Copy

• Typos and grammatical errors
• Outdated information (old addresses, phone numbers, team members)
• Placeholder text ("Lorem ipsum")
• Inconsistent capitalisation or formatting

12. Optimise Images

• Descriptive alt text (for accessibility and SEO)
• Appropriate file size (under 200KB for most images)
• Correct dimensions (don't upload a 4000px image for a 400px space)

13. Test on Multiple Browsers

Check your site on Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge. What looks perfect in Chrome might break in Safari. Test on both Mac and Windows if possible.

14. Set Up Analytics and Tracking

• All pages are being tracked
• Goals/conversions are set up
• Filters are configured (exclude your own IP)

15. Back Up Your Old Site

Before launching, take a complete backup of your old website. If something goes catastrophically wrong, you can roll back within minutes.

Post-Launch Monitoring

After you launch, monitor these for the first 2 weeks:

• Google Search Console - watch for crawl errors, indexing issues
• Analytics - compare traffic to the previous period
• Conversions - are form submissions still coming in?
• Rankings - check your key search terms (some fluctuation is normal)

A small dip in traffic in the first week is normal. If it persists beyond 2 weeks, investigate redirect issues or indexing problems.

Need a Hand With Your Redesign?

We handle website redesigns for Canberra businesses from start to finish - including all the technical details on this list. Talk to us about making your redesign smooth and stress-free.