A redesign is the most expensive way to fix a website problem, and the easiest to get wrong. Teams that start with “it looks dated” often end up with a prettier site that performs no better. Answer these fifteen questions before the first design meeting, and the new site has a clear job to do.

Goals

1. What should the new site do better than the old one? More enquiries, more online sales, fewer support calls, a better first impression for investors? Pick one or two, and write them down.

2. How will you measure it? Name the numbers — form submissions, conversion rate, organic traffic — and record today’s figures, so you can compare after launch.

3. What is actually wrong with the current site? Look at the data, not just opinions: which pages people leave from, where they get stuck, which searches you no longer rank for.

Audience

4. Who are the site’s most valuable visitors? Buyers, distributors, job seekers, existing customers? Each needs something different from the homepage.

5. What are they trying to do? List the top three tasks for each audience, and make sure the new site makes those tasks obvious.

Content

6. Which pages earn their place? Keep pages that bring traffic, links, or leads. Merge or remove the rest.

7. Who writes the new content — and by when? Content not being ready is the most common reason projects run late. See how long a website project takes.

8. Do you have the photos and video you need? Stock images make a site look like every other site. Plan a shoot if you need one.

9. Which pages bring in organic traffic today? Export them from Google Search Console before anything changes.

10. Is there a redirect plan? Every old URL needs to point to its new equivalent, or rankings drop. The website migration SEO checklist covers this step by step.

Function

11. What does the site need to connect to? CRM, booking systems, payment gateways, inventory, marketing tools — list them now, not halfway through development.

12. Who updates the site after launch? If your team edits it, the content management system must be easy for them, not just the developers.

13. Does it need to work in more than one language? Multilingual sites take more planning, content, and testing.

Ownership

14. Who makes the final decisions? Name one decision-maker. Projects with five approvers per page stall.

15. What is the budget — for the build and for the years after? Hosting, maintenance, and content updates continue long after launch.

The checklist on one page

Area Questions
Goals What improves, how it’s measured, what’s wrong today
Audience Who matters most, what they need to do
Content What to keep, who writes it, what imagery you need
Search Pages that rank today, the redirect plan
Function Integrations, who edits, languages
Ownership One decision-maker, build and running budget

With these answered, a redesign brief almost writes itself. Our website design team can work through them with you — talk to us about your redesign.