Website relaunch: process, timeline and what really lands on your desk

The six phases at a glance

A website relaunch follows the same pattern in almost every project, regardless of size and industry. Every agency names the phases a little differently, but in terms of content, they are these six: analysis and goals, structure and concept, content, design, build, launch.

The order is not arbitrary. If you start with the design before the structure is in place, you design pages that later get dropped. If you only write content after the design, you squeeze copy into layouts instead of building layouts for copy. Both happen often and cost time either way.

Realistically, a relaunch for a company with ten to fifty pages takes three to five months. Not because the work takes that long, but because there are coordination rounds between the phases. The net working time is much shorter than the project duration.

The point where projects stall

A website relaunch follows the same pattern in almost every project, regardless of size and industry. Every agency names the phases a little differently, but in terms of content, they are these six: analysis and goals, structure and concept, content, design, build, launch.

The order is not arbitrary. If you start with the design before the structure is in place, you design pages that later get dropped. If you only write content after the design, you squeeze copy into layouts instead of building layouts for copy. Both happen often and cost time either way.

Realistically, a relaunch for a company with ten to fifty pages takes three to five months. Not because the work takes that long, but because there are coordination rounds between the phases. The net working time is much shorter than the project duration.

Phase 1: Analysis and goals (one to two weeks)

It starts with the question of what the new website should achieve. Not “look more modern”, but specifically: more qualified inquiries, better visibility for certain search terms, fewer follow-up questions on the phone, taking load off sales.

Then comes the inventory: Which pages bring in visitors today? Which search terms already work? Which pages are dead weight? This data is in Search Console and in your analytics, and it prevents the most common bad decision in a relaunch, namely deleting pages that were quietly doing their job.

Your effort: a workshop of two to three hours, access to the analytics tools, a list of your most important customer questions.

Phase 2: Structure and concept (two to three weeks)

This is where the sitemap is created: which pages exist, how they connect, what links to what. This is the phase that later decides whether the website gets found, because structure is the part of search engine optimization you can't fix afterwards.

At the same time, you clarify which old URLs exist and where they will point in the future. This redirect list is the single most important building block of the whole project. Without it, you lose rankings at launch that were built up over years.

Your effort: feedback on the sitemap, decisions on pages that will be dropped. That is two to three hours, but they are decisions someone has to make.

Phase 3: Content (four to eight weeks), and this is where it gets stuck

This is the phase that gets underestimated in every project plan. Writing copy, sourcing images, getting case studies approved, updating staff details: all of this happens alongside day-to-day business.

The typical course: the first two pages come together quickly, then a client meeting gets in the way, then vacation, and after six weeks the service pages are still missing. That is not negligence, it is the norm.

What helps: don't plan content as one block, but page by page with fixed deadlines. And decide early whether copy will be written internally or externally. Both are fine, only making that decision in week five is not.

Your effort: by far the biggest. Expect twenty to forty hours spread over several weeks.

Phases 4 and 5: Design and build (four to six weeks)

Now the visible result takes shape. Usually, one or two pages are designed first as drafts to decide on the design direction. Only then are the remaining pages built.

In this phase, your effort is comparatively small, but it is time-critical: feedback that sits for a week pushes the project back by a week. That is why it pays to schedule feedback rounds in advance instead of just announcing them.

It has proven effective to give feedback bundled and from one person. Feedback from five people with different opinions costs more time than any design question.

Your effort: two to three feedback rounds of one to two hours each.

Phase 6: Launch (one week, with lead time and follow-up)

The launch itself takes minutes. What takes time is the safeguarding around it: setting up and checking redirects, informing search engines about the new structure, testing forms, checking legal pages, carrying over analytics cleanly.

In the two weeks after, the numbers need to be checked daily. A drop in page views is normal in the first few days. If it persists after two weeks, something is wrong with the redirects, and then things need to move fast.

Your effort: approval, access, and someone who is reachable in the week after.