Planning a website relaunch: the process in 7 steps

Why a relaunch starts with a plan

A relaunch rarely fails because of the design. It fails because nobody defined beforehand what the new website is supposed to do. If you discuss layouts first and only then talk about goals, content and responsibilities, you end up building twice.

The following seven steps are the order in which we set up website projects. You can use them as a checklist for your own project, no matter who you work with.

1. Define goals and target groups

Write down what the website should do differently a year from now. More qualified inquiries, better job applications, fewer follow-up questions in sales: one to three goals are enough. Then: who should visit the site, and what does that person need to have understood after one minute?

2. Audit the old site

Which pages bring in visitors from Google today, which content gets linked, which forms generate inquiries? This data later decides which URLs are kept and where redirects are needed.

3. Structure before design

Before the first page is designed, the site structure is in place: Which pages exist, how are they connected, what content goes on the homepage? A clean structure makes the design simpler, not more complicated.

4. Clarify content early

Texts, images and case studies are the most common reason for delays. Decide who delivers which content and by when. Designing with real content is always better than designing with placeholders.

5. Design and prototype

Only now is the design created, starting with the most important pages. A clickable prototype shows early on whether the user journey and hierarchy work, before a single line of code is written.

6. Development and quality assurance

Development follows the design pixel-perfectly, on every screen size. Before go-live, loading speed, forms, tracking, data protection and accessibility are checked.

7. Go-live and beyond

Go-live is where the real work begins: checking redirects, monitoring Search Console, analyzing the first data. Plan from the start who will maintain and develop the site afterwards.

In the end, a good relaunch feels easy. That's not down to luck, it's down to the order.