Website relaunch checklist: This is how your relaunch works

This website relaunch checklist provides you with a structured guide and a clear overview to avoid typical mistakes during a relaunch and to make it successful.

A website relaunch is a restart of your online presence. It often involves a new website, sometimes a redesign or a general overhaul of the existing website. A relaunch may be necessary if the website is no longer user-friendly.

During the relaunch, content, navigation, URL structure and the technical basis, such as a content management system, change frequently. That is exactly why a clear website relaunch checklist is important. It gives you an overview of the relaunch process, typical mistakes and the most important steps to ensure that website visitors don't jump off and rankings remain stable.

Make reasons for a website relaunch and goals clear

There are many reasons for a website relaunch. The important thing is: You don't start “because it should be nice,” but because the website should fulfill a goal.

Typical reasons

• The old website no longer matches the offer or contest
• The website looks out of date, the corporate design Has changed
• The website brings in too few inquiries that Conversion rate Is low
• Content is confusing, navigation confuses users
• The website is technically slow or difficult to maintain
• A good one is missing Content Management Systemto manage content yourself
• You want to better support online marketing, content marketing or an online shop

Set goals

• more qualified inquiries or sales
• better findability, stable rankings
• better user experience, i.e. a better user experience
• clear structure, clear message, clear next steps

Relaunch types

Not every relaunch is a complete relaunch. This makes a big difference when it comes to planning and budgeting.

Overview of relaunch types

• Site redesign: new look, often little change in structure
• Homepage relaunch: Focus on home page and main routes
• Design relaunch: new layout and corporate design, often new components
• SEO relaunch: Focus on content, structure, rankings and technical standards
• Complete relaunch or Web relaunch: everything new, structure, content, technology, processes

Tip: Many call it a relaunch, but only mean a redesign. That's okay as long as it's clear what's really happening.

Check your existing website: What is already working today?

Analyzing the current website is an important step before a relaunch to understand what should be retained and what should be improved. Before you rebuild, you need to know what not to break.

checklist

• Create a list of all pages
• Mark pages that are bringing visitors today
• Mark pages that are receiving inquiries today
• Check content: What is out of date, what is missing, what is unclear?
• Check the technology: does the page run well on the mobile phone, does it load fast enough?

Tip: If you only want to save five pages, save the pages that lead are coming from.

Planning a new structure: How should visitors orient themselves?

This is about people quickly understanding what you're offering and that Google classifies the content correctly. Planning a website relaunch should start with an internal meeting.

checklist

• Plan navigation: Which items are at the top of the menu
• Plan page structure: which pages belong together
• Decide which page types you need: homepage, services, references, contact
• Clear way to get in touch: on every important page
• Usability should be paramount when designing the new website.

Plan and prepare content

This is where most delays occur. Because texts and references often come too late.

checklist

• Decide per page: keep, improve, rewrite, delete
• Prepare texts: What exactly should the page say, for whom, with which goal
• Collect references and examples
• Prepare images: good quality, not too big, appropriate to the topic
• Think about meta title and meta description per page
• The goals of the relaunch should be clearly defined in order to measure success.

Meta title and meta description are the lines of text that you often see on Google. They help decide whether someone clicks.

SEO measures: What needs to be prepared for the relaunch?

A website relaunch may be necessary if basic SEO issues cannot be resolved. Many call this “SEO.” Translated, this means: Your website should continue to be easily found on Google.

The most important point is: When page addresses change, the old addresses must redirect to the new ones. Otherwise, you'll end up on error pages.

checklist

• List old pages create addresses and new pages addresses
• Set up redirects: old address leads to the appropriate new page
• Check internal links: correctly guide menus and buttons everywhere
• Check headlines: Does the main headline match the page and the topic
• Send a new sitemap to Google so that Google can find everything quickly

A sitemap is a list of your pages that helps Google find.

Check tracking and forms

After the relaunch, it should be possible to measure whether the website is working. And forms must run reliably.

checklist

• Check that contact forms are really sending
• Check whether the confirmation works afterwards
• Check whether requests arrive in the correct mailbox
• Check whether requests are being targeted so you can measure success

Tests before Go Live: Play through everything once like a customer

That's the part that a lot of people leave out. And this is exactly where the classic launch problems happen.

checklist

• Test a website on mobile, laptop and tablet
• Click through the menu and footer completely
• test all buttons
• test all forms
• Test the most important pages: start, services, references, contact
• Check whether pages load fast enough
• Sample: test old links to see if they redirect cleanly

Common mistakes when relaunching a website

• old website pages disappear without replacement
• no or incorrect 301 redirects
• Navigation is becoming more complicated rather than clearer
• Content is becoming shorter and less helpful
• You don't measure anything: no tracking, no clear goals
• You see problems too late because Google Search Console is not being used

Launch week: Stay calm, check in a controlled manner

After Go Live, you should actively check whether everything is stable for a week.

checklist

• Check whether Google finds and shows the new website
• Check whether visitor numbers are normal
• Check whether requests come in normally
• Check error pages and fix them quickly
• Plan small improvements instead of trying to make everything perfect before launch

Tips: How to keep the relaunch process simple

• First create an overview, then build
• fewer templates, more reusable components
• Content first, design afterwards
• Prioritize important pages, not everything at once
• Actively check for two weeks after the relaunch