Website Redesign SEO Checklist

Updated: August 19, 2022.

A website redesign SEO checklist that volition assistance you sphere your rankings erstwhile doing tract redesign. 

Doing website redesign (properly) is simply a precise hard task astir of the time. Recreating thing implicit and functional that already works but tin amended is often much challenging than creating thing from scratch. 

The bully quality is that it tin get easier with a broad website redesign SEO checklist that I americium sharing with you here.

Below are 20+ SEO elements and considerations that volition assistance you bash website redesign decently and successful specified a mode that your tract volition so payment from it. 

Note that this database website redesign SEO checklist is neither implicit nor last but contains a clump of champion website SEO practices you should cognize astir and implement. 

Ready? Let’s get started! 

❓Looking to prosecute idiosyncratic to audit your website oregon bash SEO? Make definite to cheque the SEO services I connection specified arsenic SEO auditing, SEO consulting, SEO mentorship, and monthly SEO services.
👉 Contact me for much accusation oregon if you person immoderate questions oregon larn much astir wherefore you privation to prosecute maine arsenic your SEO consultant.

Website Redesign SEO Checklist #1: Goals

Without well-defined redesigning goals, you whitethorn extremity up expending a batch of effort without achieving the desired results. Just similar with immoderate SEO task, you request to person wide goals set. 

A fewer tips that tin assistance with extremity mounting are:

• Set SMART Goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound goals.   
• Define your KPIs and applicable goals for the redesign. This whitethorn see much conversions, attracting much integrated traffic, leads, unsocial visitors, etc.
• One extremity should beryllium to support the existent ranking for immoderate of your people keywords and fertile for immoderate of the caller ones you’ve focused connected for your website redesign.
• Your goals should beryllium based connected questions like: 
  • Will the redesign assistance you summation your imaginable user pool? 
  • Will it assistance you scope retired to a caller people assemblage conception that you couldn’t with your aged website?
• If your broader extremity is to found yourself arsenic an manufacture leader, determination should beryllium plentifulness of sub-goals for the website redesigning that tin assistance you execute that, i.e., authoritative contented creation, reaching your people assemblage via antithetic channels, etc. This besides includes taking attraction of the E-A-T portion of the SEO redesign of your site. Here is simply a tiny reminder from the Google Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines:

• If you attraction astir ranking precocious successful Google, the main extremity of your website redesign should beryllium to amended the leafage experience. Google is wide astir what a bully leafage acquisition is and however a website tin supply that. Here are the Google leafage acquisition signals:

• A acceptable of clearly-defined goals, an underlying strategy to execute those goals, and a elaborate program should beryllium your blueprint for the redesign. 

⚡ Make definite to cheque my Google leafage acquisition audit that volition assistance you analyse your tract for its compliance with Google leafage acquisition signals. I besides person the Google leafage acquisition guide that describes each of the leafage acquisition factors. 

Website Redesign SEO Checklist #2: Research

Your goals volition find your probe areas, but generally, you’d request to probe your competitors and audience. 

• Competitors: To spot what your peers and manufacture leaders are doing close and incorporated palmy themes into your redesign.
• Audience: What they mightiness oregon mightiness not similar successful your “refreshed” website.

From a user-friendliness and UX perspective, your probe volition astir apt beryllium some generative and evaluative successful nature.

• Generative Research: It’s mostly qualitative probe that requires idiosyncratic interviews, driving insights from feedback, and your people audience’s enactment with competing brands. Its extremity is to find what your people assemblage wants and however they privation it.
• Evaluative Research: The connection ‘evaluative’ mightiness springiness you a hint to its “quantitative” nature, and it mightiness see A/B and Tree testing, etc.

Website Redesign SEO Checklist #3: Audience

No substance however well-made your archetypal website was, it wouldn’t person targeted your intended assemblage with important accuracy. There are galore concern owners who larn astir their expected people assemblage aft the website is unrecorded and the concern gains traction. 

The quality of website redesign is that you get to use that cognition and usage it to adhd a caller people assemblage segment, spell to an unexplored people audience, and widen your existent user pools by reaching retired to a wider demographic.

But it’s important to enactment that determination is simply a good enactment betwixt redesigning a website and rebranding your business. If your extremity isn’t the latter, the redesign shouldn’t person that unintended effect due to the fact that that mightiness origin your archetypal user excavation to shrink.

Website Redesign SEO Checklist #4: Rankings & Google Updates

One of the reasons you mightiness beryllium redesigning your website is that it’s not ranking arsenic good connected SERPs arsenic it should. And the occupation is not ever the content. There are a plethora of SEO ranking factors (and method SEO elements) you person to relationship for to get to the top.

There is seldom a amended clip to people a batch of SEO points with Google erstwhile you are redesigning a website by focusing on:

• Google’s updates of the ranking factors and its algorithms. Like the leafage acquisition update that made Core Web Vitals a ranking factor.

• Optimize for caller trends similar voice-based queries.
• Consider making conversational AI a portion of your redesigned website to prosecute your visitors.

Anything that would marque your website full and your contented much helpful, accessible, and credible for your visitors volition apt endear you to Google. So strive to conscionable the evolving expectations of your people audience.

⚡ Make definite to cheque my Core Web Vitals audit that contains 35+ elements that power the Core Web Vitals metrics. 

Website Redesign SEO Checklist #5: Keyword Research And Mapping

Even if you already person a keyword representation for your archetypal website and you’ve done your probe and created contented (some of which is already ranked), you should update your representation and probe the caller keywords you are trying to fertile for. 

You request to:

• Add caller keywords based connected caller services/products you are present offering that weren’t portion of the archetypal website.
• Try to fertile for immoderate authoritative albeit little contested topics/keywords to boost your website’s wide postulation and credibility (ultimately domain authority).
• Research keywords and keyword variations that mightiness person a decent hunt measurement but not capable bully prime contented to fulfill them.
• You tin usage immoderate oregon each of the pursuing tools to bash keyword probe for your redesigned website:
  • Ahrefs Keywords Explorer 
  • Google Keyword Planner 
  • AnswerThePublic
  • AlsoAsked.com
  • Semrush Keyword Magic Tool. Semrush offers an awesome and escaped keyword probe course.  

Website Redesign SEO Checklist #6: Analyze & Benchmark Current Site

Analyzing and auditing your existent website is similar cleaning your retention space. Determine what to support and what to propulsion away. 

Here are the steps you mightiness privation to take:

• Benchmark your existent website, including the fig of unsocial visitors, clip spent connected site, bounce rate, etc. Determine patterns successful the fig of visitors and income conversions (over a specified play and seasonal fluctuations). You tin bash that utilizing Google Analytics (GA). 
• Check however the tract is performing successful search, connected what positions successful ranks, what its click-through complaint is, what web pages person the astir integrated traffic, etc. You tin bash that using Google Search Console (GSC).

• Run a broad nexus audit. You tin usage a instrumentality similar Semrush Link Audit. 

• Crawl your existent tract utilizing a crawler similar Screaming Frog oregon Sitebulb. Make definite to prevention the crawl information truthful that you tin comparison it aboriginal with the crawl information aft the redesign is complete. 
• Check however galore web pages are indexed. You tin either usage the site: bid oregon cheque the Google Search Console Coverage report. 

• Look for inconsistencies and problems similar duplicate oregon missing leafage titles, pages that are returning an mistake code, unoptimized titles, and descriptions, etc.

⚡ Make definite to cheque my SEO audit checklist that covers 188+ SEO elements that you should cheque some earlier and particularly aft the redesign is complete. 

Website Redesign SEO Checklist #7: Find High-Ranking And Low-Performing Content

Find retired the keywords your existent website is ranking precocious for. Determine the best-performing and the worst-performing web pages connected your website and determine which ones to support and which ones to prune. 

Here are a fewer tips that volition help: 

• Retain the contented and the URL that’s already ranking precocious for definite keywords.
• Even if the contented isn’t ranking rather high, if it’s a adjuvant assets with respective inbound links, you should support it.
• Identify dead-weight contented and URLs.
• Look for orphaned pages. A crawler similar Semrush Site Audit oregon Sitebulb will assistance you find those pages.

• Prune your website by deleting contented that’s nary longer relevant, obsolete, and is simply dead-weight erstwhile it comes to SEO.

You mightiness privation to usage the pursuing tools to find the champion and the worst URLs connected your site:

• Google Analytics: Go to Behavior > Site Content > All Pages to find the web pages that get the bulk of traffic. These are the URLs you astir apt privation to keep.

• Google Search Console: Go to Performance > Search results and click PAGES to spot the web pages that get the astir integrated traffic. 
• Google Search Console: Just similar above, spell to Performance > Search results > PAGES and click connected Clicks to alteration the bid of the pages truthful that the web pages that get the slightest fig of clicks are astatine the apical of the list. Review these web pages and determine if you privation to support them.

• Semrush: Go to SEO Dashboard > Organic Research and take Pages. You volition spot the database of web pages with the highest visibility.

• Ahrefs: Go to Organic search > Top pages and you volition spot the database of the best-performing web pages unneurotic with the fig of keywords they fertile for.

Website Redesign SEO Checklist #8: Backlinks

Take inventory of arsenic galore inbound links arsenic you can, particularly erstwhile pruning your website for aged and obsolete content. 

If a leafage doesn’t acceptable your redesign oregon rebranding docket similar a mitt but has a batch of inbound links, it’s amended to support that leafage due to the fact that a abrupt driblet successful inbound links to your website tin effect successful a driblet successful rankings arsenic well.

If you are considering shifting your domain, you volition request to marque a broad database of your backlinks truthful that you tin redirect the web pages with backlinks to the caller URLs.  You mightiness person to filter the database down by presumption (online oregon offline) and domain authorization of the linking website (and however it compares against yours) and shortlist the astir beneficial ones. 

Here is however you cheque what web pages person the champion backlinks:

• Google Search Console: Navigate to Links > Top linked pages to presumption the web pages that person the biggest fig of backlinks. Remember that this volition lone archer you astir the fig of backlinks, not their prime oregon “strength”. 

• Ahrefs:  Go to Pages > Best by links and you volition spot the web pages that person the champion links. 
• Ahrefs: Go to Backlink illustration > Backlinks to spot each the backlinks that Ahrefs detected for your site.
• Semrush: Go to SEO > LINK BUILDING > Backlink Analytics to spot the backlinks that Semrush detected for your site.

Remember to usage a mates of antithetic tools to cheque the backlinks successful bid not to miss immoderate link. Each instrumentality volition astir apt amusement you somewhat antithetic links and you request to usage a fewer to get the full picture. 

Website Redesign SEO Checklist #9: Hide The Staging Site

You don’t privation crawlers sniffing astir your half-baked pie, truthful marque definite to make a trial tract that is not accessible to hunt motor crawlers… and users. 

To guarantee that hunt engines are not cataloging and accounting for the contented and elements that are inactive being developed, you can:

• Leverage the staging situation offered by your autochthonal hosting provider. Most hosting providers connection that diagnostic wrong 1 click. 
• Add the no-index meta robots tag to each the caller pages that volition beryllium portion of your redesigned websites.
•  Use the no-index diagnostic of your CMS. In WordPress, for example, this diagnostic is called “Discourage hunt engines from indexing this site”. You tin find it in Settings > Reading. 

• You tin besides password-protect the trial website truthful that it is invisible some to users and hunt motor crawlers. 
• WordPress and different CMS types besides let you to show the under-construction connection for your trial site. To bash that successful WordPress, you tin usage the Under Construction plugin, for example. 

Website Redesign SEO Checklist #10: URL Addresses

The SEO outgo of changing URLs mightiness beryllium excessively precocious to bear, particularly if you are not going done a large rebranding. 

• This is 1 of the reasons that each the caller changes should beryllium done connected a trial tract truthful that you don’t suffer the SEO merits associated with your existent website. 
• Make definite you support your URLs intact, making it easier for hunt motor crawlers to scale your redesigned website. Of course, determination are instances wherever the alteration is inevitable but – if imaginable – debar changing the URL structure. 
• You tin easy cheque and comparison the URLs of the aged and the caller website by doing a afloat crawl of the site. You tin bash that utilizing Sitebulb or Screaming Frog SEO Spider. 

Website Redesign SEO Checklist #11: 301 Redirects

You mightiness person utilized 302 redirects to accommodate impermanent URL changes during partial redesigns and revamps, but erstwhile redesigning your full website and overhauling the full structure, you would request to acceptable up 301 redirects. 

A fewer tips that volition help:

• Redirect pages that person astatine slightest 1 backlink.
• Redirect web pages that you privation to region but which person traffic. You tin cheque the postulation coming to circumstantial pages successful Google Analytics. Go to Behavior > Site Content > All pages. 
• If you are utilizing WordPress, you tin usage the Rank Math SEO plugin that besides allows you to acceptable up and negociate redirections easily. 

• HTTP versions of aged sites and pages should nonstop to HTTPS versions. 
• Make definite the caller tract has an SSL certificate. You tin larn astir the difference betwixt HTTP and HTTPS here. 
•  You mightiness see removing aged pages with 301 presumption from your website to support crawler “irritation” to a minimum.
• Break the concatenation of redirects, 1 is usually enough.
• Crawl the website utilizing a crawler specified arsenic Screaming Frog oregon Sitebulb to cheque if the redirects enactment correctly oregon if determination are immoderate redirect chains. 

Once redirected, the caller leafage volition inherit each the SEO merits and worth of the aged leafage it’s redirected from.

Website Redesign SEO Checklist #12: 404 Pages

You mightiness not make replacements for each web leafage you are dropping, but to trim the irritation of the radical trying to scope that leafage (through browser history, web cache, oregon a bookmark), make originative 404 pages that tin really assistance them by directing them to a adjuvant resource. 

But to guarantee that determination are not immoderate unintentional 404 pages, you should:

• Crawl your site, and compile a database of 404 pages. Search for titles oregon keywords related to that leafage to find it a fitting lucifer connected the site. If determination is one, acceptable up a due (301) redirect.
• Google mightiness besides dainty immoderate of your pages arsenic 404 oregon missing if determination is small to nary contented connected them oregon if they are an nonstop (or a precise close) duplication of different leafage connected the internet.

Website Redesign SEO Checklist #13: UX Considerations

A due (SEO) redesign is simply a large mode to amended and solidify the large idiosyncratic acquisition of your website. 

There are a fewer UX considerations you person to support successful caput if you privation to guarantee that the redesigned tract brings you much postulation and is not pushing the archetypal postulation distant arsenic well:

• Extensively re-research your people marketplace arsenic to however it stands present erstwhile you are redesigning. In lawsuit you person strayed from your perfect people assemblage that you developed the archetypal tract for, plan the caller tract for your existent people audience.
• Also, marque definite determination is thing for each conception oregon user “persona” that they similar connected your redesigned website.
• Focus connected the location leafage and however effectual it is astatine diverting postulation distant to applicable resources and the astir important web pages of the site. 
• Keep your marque representation accordant with retaining your idiosyncratic loyalty.

Website Redesign SEO Checklist #14: UI & Accessibility Considerations

When you are redesigning your full website, you request to guarantee that you are besides improving your idiosyncratic interface (UI) arsenic overmuch arsenic you can. 

Some of the bully UI practices to support successful caput portion redesigning are:

• The website should beryllium clear, consistent, and accessible: If you person buried important accusation down into a maze of needlessly analyzable navigation, your idiosyncratic volition astir apt crook distant quickly. So adjacent if the aged website was a UI nightmare, marque definite the redesign is its salvation.
• Seek evolution, not extremist change: If you displacement UI elements excessively much, your users mightiness spot it arsenic thing wholly caller and get lost. Make definite to clasp elements of familiarity.
• Use the past to usher you: Fix the elements and pages you got the astir antagonistic user/tester feedback connected and clasp what users liked. But you should besides look into caller UI trends and springiness your users what they mightiness beryllium expecting from a caller mentation of your website.
• When doing a redesign, bash not hide astir accessibility: You tin make the Lighthouse report for the redesigned tract and cheque what the Accessibility study suggests. There are tons of utile and straightforward accessibility tips and champion practices there.  

Website Redesign SEO Checklist #15: Mobile-Friendly

If your aged website wasn’t mobile-friendly, it doesn’t mean that the caller 1 should inherit that atrocious trait arsenic well. By nary means! Your tract needs to beryllium mobile-friendly. 

Here is what to support successful mind: 

• With the mobile-first indexing just astir the corner, determination is nary spot for a tract that is not mobile-friendly. This is highly improbable that your caller website volition not beryllium mobile-friendly but determination are nary rules without exceptions, truthful support that successful mind. Check my usher connected how to cheque if a tract is mobile-friendly. 
• Even if your redesigned tract is mobile-friendly, marque definite that it so displays correctly connected mobile devices and that determination are nary loading issues. You tin cheque that with the Mobile-Friendly Test.

• Banish ads that popular up connected a mobile surface and artifact the contented your idiosyncratic is reading. They are annoying connected computers and intolerable connected tiny mobile screens. Check my guide to intrusive interstitials to larn more. 

More than fractional of the net postulation is coming from mobile devices these days, and that is lone expected to summation implicit time. Care astir your mobile users.

Website Redesign SEO Checklist #16: Website Structure

Your website architecture makes it easier some for web crawlers and users to recognize your website. 

Here are a fewer tips to support successful mind: 

• The much contented and web pages you have, the much extended your website architecture tin get, but “extensive” doesn’t request to beryllium complex, not for crawlers anyway. 
• A due architecture besides helps the bots recognize website hierarchy amended and spot the full website arsenic a unified resource. 
• It tin besides beryllium much beneficial for your users from a UX/UI position if your redesigned tract has categories, content, products, and services that are organized better.
• You tin usage a tract crawler, specified arsenic Screaming Frog oregon Sitebulb to instrumentality a heavy look astatine your tract structure. 

Website Redesign SEO Checklist #17: XML Sitemap

An XML sitemap is an awesome mode to pass hunt motor crawlers astir the web pages of your website. 

Since you are redesigning your website, Google and different hunt engines request to cognize that. An updated XML sitemap volition fto them cognize wherever everything is and however they tin find and scope antithetic web pages connected your website and nonstop users to them.

Here are a fewer champion practices regarding XML sitemaps:

• Make definite the XML sitemap contains lone the people (canonical) URLs of the site. 
• Include images successful the XML sitemap to fto crawlers observe invaluable images connected the site. 
• Keep the sitemap up-to-date and usage the <lastmod> parameter correctly (to really bespeak the past modification date). 
• Submit your XML sitemaps via Google Search Console. 

⚡ Read my usher connected how to find the sitemap of a website. 

Website Redesign SEO Checklist #18: Robots.txt

If an XML sitemap tells a web crawler wherever to go, the robots.txt record tells them wherever to spell and wherever not to go.

This is however your website greets the algorithms that are determination to “judge” it for its merits, truthful your robots.txt record should beryllium connected point.

Make definite that the robots.txt file: 

• indicates the close URL of the sitemap,
• blocks each the resources that should beryllium blocked from crawling,
• does not accidentally artifact hunt motor robots from crawling the full tract oregon the full sections of the site,
• is not utilized to artifact web pages oregon the full website from indexing,
• is valid. 

⚡ If you usage WordPress, marque definite to cheque how to entree robots.txt successful WordPress to larn more. 

Website Redesign SEO Checklist #19: Monitoring

Going backmost to the website redesign SEO checklist constituent one, you request to person a monitoring strategy to guarantee whether oregon not your redesigned website is gathering the goals you person set. 

Don’t beryllium hasty and commencement panicking astir your SEO ranking aft 1 oregon 2 weeks. Instead, ticker for patterns and movements. If your bounce complaint is going down and postulation is going up, you mightiness beryllium connected the close track. However, the “pace” of it should lucifer your existent SEO goals.

Here are the tools you mightiness privation to usage to analyse and show your redesigned website:

• Google Search Console to show the show of your tract successful search,
• Google Analytics to show the assemblage and postulation your tract is getting,

• Semrush and/or Ahrefs to show the wide visibility and its trends successful search,

Website Redesign SEO Checklist #20: Backups

Create a backup of your archetypal website conscionable successful lawsuit you request to reconstruct it. 

The archetypal tract volition enactment unrecorded till the redesigned mentation is up anyway, but adjacent aft that, marque definite you person a implicit transcript on with the archetypal crawling reports. 

• Most hosting providers let you to backup your website oregon you tin usage galore fashionable backup plugins for WordPress. 
• I personally usage UpdraftPlus alongside the hosting backup. 

Bonus: SEO Audit Of A New Site

Doing the redesign of the website is simply a large accidental to marque definite that the caller tract is successful the champion SEO signifier possible. To marque definite that is the case, you should bash an in-depth method SEO audit of your redesigned site. 

Here are a fewer applicable tips connected however to spell astir it: 

• If you don’t person clip oregon resources to execute an SEO audit of your site, you tin prosecute an SEO nonrecreational to bash it for you.
• If you are pressed for time, you tin besides cheque how to execute an SEO audit with Sitebulb (in little than an hour).
• Make definite the audit is performed earlier the tract goes unrecorded and is indexed by hunt engines. 
• If you request assistance with method SEO, consciousness escaped to interaction me. SEO auditing is my specialty.