Website Redesign SEO Checklist: Redesign without losing SEO

Website Redesign SEO Checklist: Relaunching without losing your Rankings

Redesigning your website is an exciting opportunity to improve design, functionality, and user experience — but it also comes with real SEO risks. Done wrong, a redesign can seriously damage your search rankings and organic traffic. This checklist will guide you through a smart, SEO-focused website redesign. So you can relaunch with confidence and keep your hard-earned visibility intact.

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Website Redesign - Why should I even do this?

A website redesign is still one of the most effective ways to bring your digital presence up to speed. As your business evolves, your website needs to reflect new goals, audience behaviors, and technical standards. You want your webpage to show off what your business really is about, with all the benefits you are offering for your users. Important: The most relevant information need to be visible fast and easy to read.

A redesign allows you to improve how users interact with your site and how search engines evaluate it. If your current website feels outdated or underperforms, a thoughtful redesign can help you unlock better results across the board.

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Redesign and SEO - How they belong to each other

‍Design and SEO are closely connected, even if they’re often treated separately. A website redesign changes core elements like URL structure, content, and navigation. All of which directly impact how search engines understand and rank your site. Without a solid SEO strategy in place, even a beautiful new design can lead to lost rankings and traffic.

At the same time, a redesign offers the perfect moment to fix technical SEO issues and improve how users and search engines experience your content. Done right, it’s a chance to not only protect your visibility, but actually improve it. That’s why SEO needs to be part of the conversation from day one of any redesign project.

Pros & Cons: Things to consider before redesigning

Redesigning your website can open the door to meaningful improvements. But there are also risks. That’s why preparation is key. Knowing what’s at stake helps you build a strategy that maximizes the benefits while avoiding common pitfalls.

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Your step-by-step breakdown: Do this to avoid ranking drops

‍A successful website redesign doesn’t start with design. It starts with a plan. Without a clear, SEO-focused process, even small changes can have a big impact on your rankings and traffic. That’s why preparation is everything. What you do before, during, and after the relaunch will determine whether your SEO stays strong or takes a hit. Follow this step-by-step breakdown to protect your visibility and set your new site up for long-term success.

Preparation: Step 1 of your website redesign project

A good preparation is key to make your SEO Relaunch successful and don’t miss out on important things while doing the execution.

Save Your Status Quo and Define KPIs

Before making any changes, it’s crucial to understand where you currently stand. This isn’t just about tracking progress. It’s about protecting what’s already working. Documenting your KPIs helps you measure the impact of your redesign and ensures you don’t lose ground in the process. Some KPIs you should consider:

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What to Keep, What to Change, What to Dump

Not all content deserves a second chance. This is the moment to audit your existing pages and align them with your future strategy. The goal is to keep what works, improve what has potential, and remove what holds you back.

• Start with a keyword mapping. Know which pages target which topics and where the gaps are.
• Identify high-performing pages that already rank well and generate traffic. These need to be preserved and handled with care.
• Spot underperforming pages that offer little SEO value. These may need to be rewritten or removed entirely.
• Look out for duplicate or overlapping content. Pages competing for the same keyword weaken each other’s performance (keyword cannibalism).

Decide with intent: Which content stays? Which gets merged or redirected? And which pages are better off archived?

URL Structure (Clustering)

A well-structured website helps both users and search engines navigate your content. As you redesign, your URL structure and internal linking need to be just as intentional as your layout.

• Plan your website-directory. Are there any useful categories you can build to help your visitors navigate through your page? Build directories based on keywords but also mind a logical categorisation for your users.
• Rethink the navigation. It should reflect your core services or products, guide users logically, and support your SEO goals.
• Map out your internal links. Before making changes, back up your current structure. Then plan a new system that automates internal linking to your most valuable content clusters.

Execution: Improve your SEO

The preparation is done. Now it’s time to put your redesign into action. This is where solid planning turns into a successful, SEO-safe relaunch.

Developing Your New Web Design

Your new design should look great but it also needs to perform. A strong SEO foundation must be built into the visual and structural layers of your site right from the start.

Think beyond aesthetics. Design with E-E-A-T principles in mind: show Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. This is especially important if your site deals with topics related to finance, health, or other sensitive areas.

Consider On-Page SEO

It’s tempting to focus on layout, but your on-page SEO needs attention too. If skipped, you risk starting over in the eyes of search engines.

• Review your meta titles and descriptions. Decide case-by-case whether to keep, tweak, or rewrite them based on performance and alignment with new page goals.
• Set up a clear and logical heading hierarchy. Use only one <h1> per page, followed by well-structured subheadings.
• Add structured data (schema.org) where relevant. For example, for FAQs, articles, local businesses, or product pages. This can improve how your content appears in search results.

Performance

A visually stunning site means little if it loads slowly. For years your site’s performance is a ranking factor. Always keep in mind: User patience is short and google knows about that too.

• Image optimization is key. Use automated tools to resize and convert images to modern formats like WebP without sacrificing quality.
• Implement caching, lazy loading, and minification of CSS and JavaScript files. Many performance tools and plugins can handle this without needing custom code.
• Mobile-First: This one is obvious but mobile-first-design is meanwhile the standard and should be considered from step 1. If your page isn’t performing well on mobile, your rankings won’t go up either.

You can run tests on tools like PageSpeed Insights or GTmetric before and after changes to track impact.

You Run an International Site?

If you serve multiple regions or languages, now is the time to update your hreflang tags. These tell search engines which version of your site to show to users based on their language or location. Make sure every language version is clearly marked and properly linked. Double-check that the canonical URLs point to the correct regional or language-specific version.

Launch Day: Go Live without panicking

The big moment has arrived and you are ready to publish? Congrats! But don’t forget the highly important adjustments to tell google your website is changing. This is where many SEO disasters happen, so don’t rush.

301-Redirects

This step is non-negotiable. If you change URLs without proper redirects, you risk losing both traffic and rankings overnight. So you need to tell Google where it can find your new content.

• Set up 301 redirects from every old URL to the most relevant new one. This tells search engines that the page has moved permanently and transfers most of the SEO value.
  e.g.: Your old URL https://domain.com/we-make-your-redesign/ needs to point to your new URL https://domain.com/webdesign/redesign-service/
• Avoid redirect chains (e.g., old URL → temporary URL → final URL). They slow things down and dilute authority.

Refreshing Your Sitemap and robots.txt

Your sitemap helps search engines understand the structure of your site. With new URL-structures you also need to update your sitemap.

• Generate a new XML sitemap that includes only the live, indexable pages of your new website.
• Submit it to Google Search Console (and Bing Webmaster Tools, if relevant) to trigger faster reindexing.
• While you’re at it, double-check your robots.txt file to make sure nothing important is being blocked. And...is your new sitemap still linked within your robots.txt?
• Anyways...mind your robots.txt. Ensure all the important pages can be crawled. But also disallow the crawling of irrelevant pages such as filter-pages, search-query-pages, checkout pages and anything else that is not supposed to show up in search results. Doing this, you ensure that you don’t waste crawling budget.

Last but not least: Testing

Before launching, take time to rigorously test your new website. Don’t assume everything works just because it looks good. Even small errors could have a negative effect on your SEO if not fixed fast.

Check for broken links, missing images, non-functional buttons, and layout issues across multiple devices and browsers. Test forms, filters, internal search, menus and anything interactive. Share your staging link with a few colleagues or friends. Fresh eyes often catch details you missed. Make a simple checklist or feedback form so they can report issues efficiently.

After launch: The moment of truth

You went live and think it’s done? Sorry, but here the fun begins. Now its time to stay ahead and track if your relaunch is doing good for your SEO.

Re-Submitting Pages to Google Search Console

If you’ve added new pages or changed URLs, don’t wait for Google to find them on its own. Manually submit key pages (like your homepage, services, and blog articles) via the URL Inspection Tool in Google Search Console. Also re-submit your updated XML sitemap to prompt a fresh crawl of your site structure.

SEO Audit

Even the most carefully planned launches can introduce errors. Catching them early can save rankings, revenue, and reputation. Use tools like Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, or Sitebulb to scan for any technical errors such as broken links or missing metadata.

Also check your Google Search Console for new warnings or coverage issues that may pop up within the first few days.

We recommend doing this every 5-10 days within the first 4 weeks to cover all errors that might be popping up.

Preserve Lost Backlinks

Backlinks are one of your strongest SEO assets and a redesign can accidentally break them if not handled carefully. Especially if you are changing your URLs, backlinks from other pages might disappear.

Use tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Majestic to monitor your backlink profile. Check for any lost backlinks pointing to pages that no longer exist or have moved without a proper redirect. Reach out to the referring websites and politely ask them to update the link to your new URL.

On-Going: Keep SEO Health in Check

The work doesn’t stop once your new website is live. The first few weeks are critical. This is when search engines (and users) start interacting with your updated content and structure. Stay proactive to catch issues early and preserve the SEO value you’ve worked so hard to build.

Monitor Your Rankings and KPIs Closely

Keep a close eye on your rankings, organic traffic, CTR, and other key metrics - Especially during the first four weeks. Compare post-launch performance to your baseline data gathered during the preparation phase.

If you notice any sudden drops or negative trends, investigate immediately. It’s far easier to fix issues early before they snowball.

Your Free Checklist: Relaunch your Site without losing rankings

Redesigning your website? Use this streamlined checklist to stay on track and protect your SEO from day one. It covers every critical step, from preparation to post-launch, so you can relaunch with confidence and avoid costly ranking drops. No fluff, just what matters.

What else to consider while redesigning your website

A successful redesign goes beyond visuals and SEO. Think about how the new site will support your overall business goals, marketing efforts, and long-term scalability. If you are curious about other aspects that might be relevant for your Relaunch you can find our practical guide for your website redesign process right here. Additionally, you can learn more about website redesign costs here.

Final thoughts

A website redesign is a major opportunity, but should be done carefully. Without an SEO plan, it can quickly become a setback. With the right preparation you can relaunch your site without losing visibility and even improve it. Take the time to do it right, protect what’s working, and build a stronger foundation for future growth. If you’re unsure where to start, don’t hesitate to ask for expert support.