Key takeaways:
- A website redesign should start with business goals, analytics, user feedback, and a clear redesign strategy.
- A successful website redesign protects existing content, important pages, search engine rankings, and current site functionality.
- The strongest redesign process includes planning, design, development, testing, launch, and post-launch monitoring.
Your website acts as the front door to your business. It’s risky to leave an outdated website unchanged. Visitors judge your credibility in seconds, and if they struggle to find what they need, they will leave.
A full website redesign is an opportunity to fix these issues. When you approach a redesign project the right way, you can improve the user experience, fix site speed issues, and strengthen your brand identity. You also need to protect your search engine optimization (SEO) and conversions.
It feels like a big job, but a successful website redesign is manageable when you break it down.
We mapped out the entire website redesign process into five clear phases. This 13-step plan will help you launch a redesigned website that looks great and delivers real results for your business. So let’s dive into how to redesign website layouts and pages the right way.
What is a website redesign?
A website redesign is a complete overhaul of your existing website. It’s beyond simply swapping out a few photos or changing your brand colors.
A full redesign involves actively changing the site structure, user journey, and technical performance. You’re updating the layout, writing better content, improving visual elements, and making sure your SEO is solid.
The goal of redesigning your website is to build a modern, high-performing platform that speaks to your target readers. A redesigned site should look fresh, load fast, and guide visitors where you want them to go.
A good redesign also considers what should not change. If a page already ranks well, converts leads, or answers common customer questions, keep the intent and value of that page intact even if the design and wording change. You get to modernize without throwing away the parts of your current site that already support your business.
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Website redesign vs website refresh
A website refresh updates surface-level elements while preserving most of your current website structure and functionality. Think of a refresh like painting the walls and buying new furniture. Your foundation’s kept intact.
On the other hand, a website redesign changes the deeper parts of your existing site. Think of a site redesign as knocking down walls to build a better house. Typically, this involves:
- Rebuilding your information and site architecture
- Rethinking the user journey
- Creating a new content strategy
- Overhauling performance and conversion paths
Both options are valuable. A refresh works when your site performs well but feels a little stale. A redesigned website is necessary when the core structure no longer supports your business.
A quick rule of thumb: choose a refresh when your website still works, and choose a redesign when your website blocks growth. For example, a restaurant with updated menus but dated photos may only need a refresh. A service business with confusing navigation, weak mobile pages, and no lead tracking needs a redesign.
| Website refresh | Website redesign |
|---|---|
| Updates visuals, copy, and small design details | Rebuilds structure, pages, UX, and functionality |
| Keeps the current foundation | Changes the foundation |
| Best when the site works but looks outdated | Best when the site blocks growth. |
| Faster and simpler | More strategic and involved |
| Example: Updating photos and colors | Example: Reworking navigation, mobile pages, and lead form |
8 signs it’s time for a website redesign
If you recognize a few of these signs, you should start asking yourself, “Should I redesign my site?”
- Your design looks outdated: An outdated design weakens your credibility and makes your business look inactive to potential customers.
- Your site is hard to use: A poor user experience with confusing navigation and unclear next steps will drive people away.
- Your mobile experience is weak: If your current site loads slowly or breaks on smaller screens, you’re losing mobile visitors.
- Your site speed is hurting performance: Slow pages can hurt user experience, reduce conversions, and increase the likelihood that visitors leave before viewing your content.
- Your content no longer aligns with your business: Outdated offers and text make your current website fail to reflect your true brand identity.
- Your search performance is slipping: Technical SEO issues and bad structure can drag down your search engine rankings.
- Your site cannot support current goals: If you need new e-commerce features, better lead generation, or you have existing functionality gaps, a redesign helps you meet those business goals.
- Your analytics show users drop off quickly: If visitors leave important pages without clicking, scrolling, submitting forms, or making purchases, your layout, messaging, or calls to action may need a stronger redesign.
How to redesign a website in 5 phases
A redesign project feels much easier when you group the work into clear phases. A strong redesign strategy protects what is already working while you improve the user experience, SEO, and conversions.
The website redesign process flows smoothly when you follow these five phases to a successful redesign. Here’s an overview of the plan to guide you from start to finish:
- Phase 1 — Discovery and research
- Step 1: Define your redesign goals.
- Step 2: Audit your current website.
- Step 3: Review competitors and gather user feedback.
- Phase 2 — Planning and strategy
- Step 4: Set performance benchmarks.
- Step 5: Map your site structure and key pages.
- Step 6: Build your content and SEO migration plan.
- Phase 3 — Design
- Step 7: Create wireframes for important pages.
- Step 8: Improve UX, navigation, and mobile responsiveness.
- Step 9: Update visual elements and brand identity.
- Phase 4 — Development and testing
- Step 10: Choose your platform or content management system.
- Step 11: Build the redesigned site and migrate content.
- Step 12: Test performance, security, and functionality.
- Phase 5 — Launch and post-launch
- Step 13: Launch, monitor, and improve the redesigned website
Phase 1 — Discovery and research
This phase is all about understanding what works, what fails, and what your new redesign strategy needs to accomplish. You need to gather user feedback, review your current site, and examine a competitor’s website before making any major decisions.
Step 1: Define your redesign goals.
Clarify what you want to achieve. Good redesign focuses include:
- Better user experience
- Stronger mobile responsiveness
- Faster site speed
- Higher conversions
- Stronger brand identity
- Better search engine optimization
- Updated functionality
Tie every goal directly to your business goals and the needs of your target audience. Make choices that support measurable outcomes to guarantee a successful website redesign, rather than just guessing what looks nice.
Turn broad goals into specific targets. Instead of “make the site better,” set goals like “increase contact form submissions by 20%,” “reduce homepage load time,” or “make all service pages accessible from the main menu.” Clear targets help you make better decisions when design preferences conflict with performance goals.
Step 2: Audit your current website
To audit your presence, take a look at your existing content and website performance. Review your Google Analytics to understand traffic sources, user behavior, and conversion paths. Use Google Search Console to review search performance, indexing status, and keyword rankings.
You need to decide what to keep, what to improve, and what to delete. Pay close attention to site speed, mobile responsiveness, and existing functionality like forms or checkout processes. Identify your most important pages right away. Protect these high-performing pages so you don’t lose your hard-earned traffic during the transition.
Create a simple content inventory while you audit. List every page, URL, current traffic level, primary keyword, conversion role, owner, and decision: keep, update, merge, redirect, or delete. This small spreadsheet becomes one of your most important redesign documents because it protects valuable pages and prevents forgotten content from going missing during launch.
Step 3: Review competitors and gather user feedback
Look at your competitor’s websites to spot content gaps and find smart ways to stand out. Then, figure out what your customers want. User feedback is incredibly valuable. You can:
- Review customer support requests
- Read reviews
- Send out simple surveys
- Watch user behavior data to see where people get stuck
Basic usability testing helps you find a poor user experience in the user journey. And you don’t need a team to do this well. Just talk directly to your users.
Phase 2 — Planning and strategy
This phase creates the blueprint for your new site. A solid redesign strategy keeps your designers, developers, and writers on the same page. It ensures your website redesign process stays focused on real business results from start to finish.
Step 4: Set performance benchmarks
You need to know your starting numbers so you can measure your success later. Write down your baseline metrics for site performance, site speed, user engagement, and organic traffic. Document your conversion rates and search engine rankings. Evaluate key metrics like page load times and bounce rates.
Setting up Google Analytics and claiming your domain in Google Search Console helps you understand how a user gets to your site. Analyze traffic sources to understand visitor behavior and preferences. Tracking visits and pageviews helps you see what is working. These benchmarks prove your redesign worked.
Joe Mueller, Senior Director of Product Management at Network Solutions, recommends a simple analytics foundation: “Set up Google Analytics and claim your domain in Google Search Console.” He notes that Google Analytics helps with visits and pageviews, while Google Search Console shows how users reach your site from Google Search.
For a redesign, at least track these:
- Organic sessions
- Top landing pages
- Conversions
- Form submissions
- Click-through rate
- Average ranking position
- Indexed pages
- 404 errors
Save these numbers before launch so you can compare them one week, 30 days, and 90 days after the new site goes live.
Step 5: Map your site structure and key pages
Your information architecture dictates how easy your site is to navigate.
Plan your main navigation, menus, and URL structure carefully. Outline your page hierarchy and figure out how internal links will connect your website pages.
A logical site structure naturally guides the user journey while supporting your SEO. Make sure your most important key pages are only a click or two away from the homepage. If visitors can’t find what they need instantly, they will leave.
Also, plan for redirects at this stage. If you rename or move a page, the old URL should point to the closest matching new URL. Don’t send every removed page to the homepage by default; it can confuse users and search engines.
Step 6: Build your content and SEO migration plan
Your content strategy should map out what existing content stays, what gets merged, and what gets deleted.
Decide who will write the new website content. Your SEO migration plan is crucial here. Create a 301 redirect map to preserve SEO rankings post-redesign. Document all necessary redirects so you don’t break internal links. Track your search engine rankings and protect the site’s content that currently performs well in Google search results. Plan your URL changes carefully to protect your indexing.
Use a good SEO tool during the transition.
Phase 3 — Design
This phase turns your strategy into visual layouts and user flows. You take your ideas and apply strong web design principles to build a better user experience. Your brand identity and visual elements start coming to life here.
Step 7: Create wireframes for important pages
Wireframes help you plan the layout and visual hierarchy before you commit to a final design. Wireframe these pages:
- Homepage
- Service pages
- Contact page
- Blog or resource pages
- Any high-converting landing pages
If you run e-commerce sites, map out the checkout process carefully. Keep your user journey in mind as you place text and images. Focus heavily on clear calls to action and simple navigation across all your website pages. These key pages must be easy to read and understand.
Step 8: Improve UX, navigation, and mobile responsiveness
Your new site must be user-friendly across all devices. Focus on user experience and mobile responsiveness. Build clear menus, simplify your contact forms, and make sure your page layouts are easy to scan. Using too many fields in forms can lead to user drop-offs. And every page needs strong calls to action.
A poor user experience frustrates people, so test your layouts to ensure smooth user engagement. Apply basic accessibility standards so everyone can read your content. When you refine these design elements through simple usability testing, you naturally build more trust with your visitors and increase your conversions.
Accessibility should be part of UX from the start. Your website should be easier for more people to use and reduce the chance that design choices create barriers. Use:
- Readable font sizes
- Clear contrast
- Descriptive link text
- Keyboard-friendly navigation
- Alt text for meaningful images
Step 9: Update visual elements and brand identity
Replacing an outdated design makes your current website look fresh and credible. Update your colors, typography, images, and icons to match your modern brand identity. Make sure your brand voice sounds natural and human.
Don’t treat this as just a simple visual upgrade. The visual elements and design elements on your redesigned website must build trust and clarify your message. Clean design helps people understand what you do and why they should care.
Phase 4 — Development and testing
This phase brings your designs to life on a real server. Your web development team builds out the content management system and ensures the redesigned site has strong technical performance while preserving all your existing functionality.
Step 10: Choose your platform or content management system
Picking the right content management system depends on your budget, technical skills, and long-term goals.
For most small businesses, website builders offer the fastest path to launch, combining beautiful design with simple setup. They’re easy to use and help anyone get online quickly.
You can use a DIY website builder for speed. DIY website redesigns can also significantly reduce costs compared to hiring agencies. If you need more control over your new website, consider WordPress hosting. But if you have complex needs, you might require custom development and custom coding from a professional team.
Step 11: Build the redesigned site and migrate content
This is where layouts, text, and technical requirements merge into a full redesign. You’ll migrate your approved website content and rebuild your templates on your new web hosting platform.
Take time to preserve your forms, checkout systems, and all existing functionality. Check your internal links and ensure your important redirects are set up correctly.
When you build the new site, make sure the existing content flows seamlessly into the new design so your redesigned site functions exactly as planned.
Step 12: Test performance, security, and functionality
Never launch without thorough testing.
You must verify your site speed and mobile responsiveness across different browsers and devices. Run basic usability testing on your forms and checkout processes to find any hidden bugs. Optimize images and use caching to improve website loading times. Check for broken links and confirm all your redirects point to the correct pages.
Secure your site with SSL certificates and add malware protection like SiteLock to keep customer data safe. Make sure your Google Analytics tracking is properly installed.
As our Senior Product Director Anthony Matera notes about website security: “Website security is more about the files on your hosting account and preventing them from being compromised. Domain security is more about protecting the physical asset make sure it can’t be hijacked or accidentally expire. Testing guarantees strong website performance and technical performance. This ensures your successful website redesign is ready for the public.”
And test from a customer’s point of view, not just an admin’s point of view. Submit every form, click every main button, search for a product or service, complete a checkout test if applicable, and open the site on real mobile devices. Also, test your 404 page, thank-you pages, email notifications, cookie banner, analytics events, and SSL certificate.
Phase 5 — Launch and post-launch
Your marketing efforts begin once the redesigned website goes live. A launch requires careful testing and continuous monitoring of your website performance.
Post-launch improvements keep your user engagement and search engine rankings strong over time.
Step 13: Launch, monitor, and improve the redesigned website
When you finally publish your site, start checking things immediately. You may use this checklist as a guide:
- Confirm all your redirects work perfectly.
- Test your contact forms and complete a test purchase to ensure nothing is broken.
- Monitor your Google Analytics daily to track user engagement and overall site performance.
- Watch your search engine rankings closely, but remember that rankings take time to stabilize. Don’t panic if things fluctuate for a few weeks.
Fix any technical issues the moment you spot them. Ask your customers for user feedback to see how they like the new layout. A/B testing helps optimize user experience after launch.
A successful redesign requires continuous improvement to keep your website performance aligned with your business goals. Treat your launch as a starting line, not the finish line.
For the first 30 days after launch, check your site daily during the first week and weekly after that. Watch for drops in organic traffic, crawl errors, missing pages, broken forms, and unusually low conversion activity. A small issue caught early is easier to fix than a hidden problem that affects leads for months.
How much does a website redesign cost?
Your site redesign cost depends on the size of your site and the platform you choose. Redesigning a small business website typically costs less than larger sites.
If you need custom development, professional copywriters, or a massive SEO migration, your redesign cost will naturally go up. Meanwhile, a basic website refresh using a template builder is usually quite affordable. However, a full redesign that includes custom coding by a web development team, new e-commerce features, and advanced integrations will require a larger budget.
Doing the work yourself saves money, but hiring professionals saves you time and reduces the risk of breaking your search rankings. Determine what functionality you need to grow your business, and build your budget around those specific goals.
Build a small contingency into your budget. Even a carefully planned redesign can uncover extra needs, such as new photography, additional copywriting, plugin replacements, accessibility fixes, or DNS support. Setting aside 10%–20% of the project budget for surprises helps you avoid rushed decisions near launch.
Your timeline also affects the final cost. A small refresh can sometimes be completed quickly, while a full redesign with new copy, SEO migration, e-commerce features, integrations, and approval rounds can take several weeks or months. The more pages, stakeholders, and custom features involved, the more planning time you should allow.
Frequently asked questions
To learn how to redesign a website, follow a clear website design process. Start by auditing your current site and setting goals. Plan your content and SEO structure carefully. Design your key pages, build the new site, test everything thoroughly, and launch while monitoring performance closely.
Many businesses redesign their websites every 3 to 5 years. But you should ask should I redesign my site whenever your website performance drops or your brand changes. There’s no strict timeline. If your current website has a poor user experience, lacks mobile responsiveness, or stops supporting your business goals, it’s time for an update.
A redesign can hurt your SEO if you mishandle URLs, redirects, or metadata. However, a carefully planned redesign protects your internal links and content. Doing it right can improve your search engine rankings and visibility in Google search results.
Your redesign checklist should include setting clear goals, reviewing analytics, auditing existing content, and gathering user feedback. Plan your site structure and SEO strategy. Build wireframes, conduct usability testing on mobile devices, set up necessary redirects, secure the site, and monitor analytics after launch.
A website refresh updates surface-level visuals and content without changing the foundation. A website redesign changes the core structure, user experience, functionality, and strategy. A full redesign is a much deeper project designed to completely transform how the site performs.
Stay in control of your website redesign
Tackling a website redesign feels much easier when you take it one step at a time. A successful website redesign protects what already works while improving your website performance and usability.
Plan your redesign strategy carefully, and you’ll build a redesigned website that your customers love to use.
If you want to handle things yourself, explore our Website Builder or check out our Web Hosting and WordPress Hosting options. We also offer SSL Certificates, SiteLock, and an SEO Tool to keep your new site safe and visible.
