Planning a website relaunch means recording, before anything is rebuilt, what your current site achieves today, what of it has to be kept and what the new site is meant to achieve. Only then does design begin. That sounds like paperwork. But it spares you the nastiest surprise after launch: enquiries and visitors that suddenly disappear.
The key points at a glance
- A relaunch changes more than the look: content, structure and often the addresses of your pages. That is why it needs a plan before anyone opens a layout.
- It starts with an inventory. It shows you which pages bring in enquiries today, attract visitors from Google or are linked from other websites.
- Every valuable old address that disappears gets a permanent redirect (301) to the matching new page. Otherwise visitors and search engines end up nowhere.
- You set the goal of the new site before you talk about design. Only then can you check after launch whether the relaunch was worth it.
How do you know you need a relaunch rather than a new design?
You need a relaunch when something has changed in your offer, your target group or the path to an enquiry. A new design is enough when content and structure still fit and the site has simply aged. Many projects start as a redesign and turn into a relaunch along the way, because text and pages end up changing after all.
| Redesign | Relaunch | |
|---|---|---|
| What changes | Colours, fonts, layout | Content, structure, often technology and addresses |
| Risk to your visibility in Google | low, as long as the addresses stay | high if redirects are missing |
| What you clarify first | the design direction | inventory, goal, structure, redirects |
The most common mistake is to treat a relaunch like a redesign. The site gets a new design, the text is roughly carried over, old pages are thrown out. Afterwards the website looks better. But the subpage that used to bring in most of the enquiries no longer exists. Good design belongs in every relaunch; it just cannot bring back what was lost in the planning.
What does your website already achieve today?
Before you plan anything new, you record what the old site delivers today: which pages enquiries come through, which pages get visitors from Google search and which are linked from other websites. These pages are your inventory. They may change, but they must not simply vanish.
You don’t need expensive tools for the inventory. These sources are enough:
- Google Search Console, “Performance” report: Here you can see which pages are shown and clicked in search, and for which search terms.
- Search Console, “Links” report: Shows which of your pages are linked from other websites. These links have grown over years and are the easiest thing to lose in a relaunch.
- Your analytics tool: Which pages get visited, and from which page do visitors send an enquiry? If you haven’t been measuring anything, this part is missing. Then you rely on Search Console and your inbox.
- Your inbox: Look at the enquiries from the past few months. If your form records which page it was sent from, you already have the most valuable information.
Put the result into a simple table, one row per page. Next to it, note what the page achieves: clicks from Google, enquiries, external links. Pages that perform are fixed, even if their text is completely rewritten. Pages where every column stays empty are candidates for merging or removing.
Which URLs and content must be kept in a relaunch?
You need to keep every address that achieves something in your inventory. If such a URL changes, you redirect it with a permanent redirect (status code 301) to the new page with matching content. That way old bookmarks, external links and Google find the new location, and the page keeps most of its visibility.
The tool for this is the redirect plan: a list with the old URL on the left and the new one on the right. Every row from the inventory gets a destination. Three rules help you fill it in:
- Redirect to the matching page. Sending everything to the homepage is convenient. But visitors don’t find what they were looking for there, and Google may treat such blanket redirects like a page that no longer exists. Google says so itself in its guide to site moves.
- Avoid chains. The old URL points directly to the final destination. If there were already redirects from the last rebuild, check those too and point them to the new addresses.
- Deliberately let go of what achieves nothing. Pages without visitors, enquiries or links may return an error page, most cleanly with status code 410 (“gone”), though a 404 will do as well. That page should be helpful, though, and link to your most important pages.
Besides the addresses, small things often get lost in a move and are missed later. The meta description of a page that ranks well in Google. The tracking on the contact form. The alt text of the images. If you have a second language version, it needs its own redirect plan as well.
What should the new website achieve?
Phrase the goal of the relaunch as a result you can measure after launch. That might be more suitable enquiries through a particular service page, or fewer follow-up questions because the process and prices are clearly stated on the site. “Look more modern” is a wish for the design. It doesn’t work as a goal, because after launch you can’t check whether it has been reached. At least not objectively, in numbers.
With a measurable goal, the way you discuss every further decision changes. The question is no longer “Do we like it?” but “Does this bring the right visitors closer to the next step?”. Note down a baseline from the old site straight away, for example the number of enquiries over the past three months.
If you don’t have that baseline because the old site measures nothing, set up measurement now. Then you will have at least a few weeks of data by launch and can compare afterwards. How to do that in a privacy-compliant way is covered in our article on GDPR-compliant web analytics for SMEs.
Only once the inventory and the goal are settled is it worth working on target group, message and page structure. These are the same building blocks as for a brand-new website. You will find them in detail in our guide to the website concept.
The difference from the concept for a new website lies in what comes before it. The concept describes what the new site should achieve and how it is structured. The relaunch plan adds the inventory and the redirect plan and defines what must not get lost in the move. Both belong before the design, because the inventory can change the concept: an old page that regularly brings in enquiries needs a place in the new structure.
In what order do you plan a website relaunch?
Plan the relaunch in six steps: take stock, decide which pages to keep, define the goal, develop the concept, design and build, check the launch. This order stops you from spending time and money designing pages that won’t exist afterwards, or from leaving a valuable old page without a place in the new structure.
- Take stock. Pages, enquiries, clicks from Google and external links, as described above.
- Decide what stays. Fill in the left-hand column of the redirect plan: every old URL that achieves something and needs a new destination. The destinations on the right stay open for now.
- Set the goal. One goal, one metric, one baseline from the old site.
- Develop the concept, the most important step. Understand your ideal customers, sharpen your positioning, plan the page structure and build wireframes with real copy. This is where the decisions are made that carry everything else. Once the new page structure is in place, the destinations go into the redirect plan.
- Design and build. A process of its own that builds on the concept. Concept and wireframes first turn into designs that are refined over several feedback rounds. Then the site itself takes shape: content moves over, forms and measurement are set up. All of this happens on a staging site that is blocked for search engines, so Google doesn’t find a half-finished copy of your site. Measure every design against your goal.
- Launch and check. Activate the redirects, test everything, watch the first few weeks.
There is a reason the left-hand column of the redirect plan is filled in before the concept. It forces you to find a place in the new structure for every old page that performs. If that place is missing, you notice it while planning the page structure, not once the enquiries dry up. You add the destinations as soon as the structure is settled, at the latest before the build.
If you are planning the relaunch with a service provider, the inventory also helps with the brief. What else to put together is covered in our article on writing a website brief.
What do you check at launch and in the weeks after?
On launch day you check that all redirects work, that forms arrive and that measurement is running. In the weeks after, you watch Search Console for new error pages and changes in visibility, and compare enquiries with the period before the relaunch. Small fluctuations are normal at first; a lasting drop is a signal to act.
You can work through this list on launch day:
- Open every URL from the redirect plan once. Does it land directly on the right page? With many addresses, a free checker such as httpstatus.io helps: it tests a whole list at once and shows redirect chains.
- Remove the search engine block from the staging site.
- Send a test enquiry through every form, including the confirmation email.
- Check in your analytics tool that page views and enquiries are coming in.
- Submit the new sitemap, the list of all pages for Google, in Search Console.
- After two and after four weeks: check Search Console for new 404 errors and compare enquiries with the period before the relaunch.
Frequently asked questions about a website relaunch
Will a relaunch cost me my Google rankings?
Not necessarily. Rankings are lost mainly when well-performing pages disappear without a redirect or their content is cut heavily. With a complete redirect plan, preserved core content and clean technology, you keep the risk low. Short fluctuations after launch are common because Google first has to reassess the new pages. So keep a close eye on Search Console in the first few weeks.
Do I need a redirect for every old page?
For every page that has visitors, enquiries or links from other websites, yes. Pages that achieve nothing can be removed without replacement; they then return an error page that ideally points to your most important content. Don’t redirect them all to the homepage. Visitors look there in vain for what they expected, and Google may treat it like a page that no longer exists.
How long does it take to plan a website relaunch?
That depends on the number of pages and on how quickly content and decisions are available. Plan the inventory and the redirect plan as a step of their own before design begins. What usually makes the biggest difference to the timeline is whether text and images are ready in time. Wireframes with real headlines help here, because missing content shows up early.
Relaunch, or improve the existing site step by step?
If your offer, target group and structure still fit, step-by-step improvement often achieves more than a fresh start: you change one page, measure and learn from it. A relaunch is worth it when the foundations have changed, for example through a new positioning or technology that barely allows changes any more. For the step-by-step route, our guide to conversion optimisation is a good place to start.
Conclusion: inventory first, then the layout
A website relaunch succeeds when planning comes before design. First you clarify what the old site achieves and what of it has to stay, then the goal, then the design. You can take the first step today: open Search Console, export the pages with the most clicks over the last twelve months from the “Performance” report and mark every page that brings in enquiries. That list is the core of your redirect plan. If you’d like a second opinion on your current site first, send it to us for a free website check.
