Website Relaunch Checklist

A website relaunch is a complex project with many pitfalls. After over 30 years of experience and countless relaunches, I’ve developed this checklist to protect you from the most common mistakes.

Before the Relaunch: Laying the Foundation

1. Define and Document Goals

Why the relaunch? Clarify the concrete goals:

• Improve performance: Document current load times
• Modernize design: Analyze target audience and trends
• Expand functionality: Define concrete features
• Improve SEO: Capture current rankings
• Reduce technical debt: List problems with the old site

Establish success criteria:

• Define measurable KPIs (load time, bounce rate, conversions)
• Document baseline values of the current website
• Set realistic target values for 3, 6, and 12 months

2. Inventory of the Current Website

Conduct content audit:

• Capture all URLs (Screaming Frog, sitemap export)
• Export traffic data per page (Google Analytics)
• Document backlinks (Google Search Console)
• Capture most important keywords and rankings
• Analyze conversion paths

Technical status:

• Document Core Web Vitals
• Check mobile usability
• Capture structured data
• Save current robots.txt and sitemap

3. Plan Information Architecture

Content migration:

Old URL	New URL	Status	Redirect
/products/item-1	/shop/product-1	Migrate	301
/old-page	-	Delete	410
/blog/old-post	/magazine/new-post	Migrate	301

Important:

• Every URL of the old website must be considered
• Prioritize high-traffic pages
• Document decisions

During Development

4. Ensure SEO Basics

On-Page SEO checklist:

• Meta titles optimized (50-60 characters)
• Meta descriptions created (120-160 characters)
• H1 structure on every page
• Alt texts for all images
• Internal linking planned
• Schema.org markup implemented

Technical SEO:

• XML sitemap configured
• robots.txt prepared
• Canonical tags implemented
• hreflang tags (for multilingual sites)
• 301 redirects prepared

5. Performance Optimization

Optimize Core Web Vitals:

• LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) < 2.5s

  • Optimize images (WebP, lazy loading)
  • Inline critical CSS
  • Optimize server response time

• FID (First Input Delay) < 100ms

  • Optimize JavaScript bundles
  • Avoid long tasks
  • Evaluate third-party scripts

• CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) < 0.1

  • Explicitly specify image dimensions
  • Fonts with font-display: swap
  • No dynamic content above the fold

6. Quality Assurance

Functional tests:

• All forms work
• Contact information correct
• Links work (internal and external)
• Newsletter signup works
• Shop processes (if applicable)
• Search works

Browser and device tests:

• Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge
• iOS Safari, Android Chrome
• Desktop, Tablet, Mobile
• Screen reader (accessibility)

Content review:

• Spelling checked
• Legal notice and privacy policy current
• Copyright year current
• Contact information correct

The Go-Live

7. Implement Redirect Strategy

301 redirects are critical:

# .htaccess example
Redirect 301 /old-url https://www.domain.com/new-url
RedirectMatch 301 ^/category/(.*)$ https://www.domain.com/shop/$1

Avoid common mistakes:

• ❌ Forgetting redirects → 404 errors, traffic loss
• ❌ Redirect chains → Performance problems
• ❌ Wrong redirect codes → SEO problems
• ✅ Direct 301 redirects to final URLs

8. Launch Checklist

Immediately before go-live:

• Backup of old website created
• DNS settings prepared
• SSL certificate active
• Deploy staging to production
• robots.txt: remove noindex
• Analytics tracking active

Directly after go-live:

• Website accessible
• SSL works (https)
• Test redirects (spot checks)
• Submit sitemap to Google
• Check robots.txt
• Analytics verifying data flow

9. Post-Launch Monitoring

First 24-48 hours:

• Check 404 errors in Search Console
• Check server logs for errors
• Core Web Vitals in PageSpeed Insights
• Mobile usability in Search Console
• Check conversion tracking

First week:

• Check Google Search Console daily
• Monitor index coverage
• Rankings of most important keywords
• Traffic comparison with previous week
• Collect user feedback

10. Long-Term Success Control

Monthly reporting:

KPI	Before Relaunch	Month 1	Month 3	Goal
Organic Traffic	X			+20%
Load Time (LCP)	X s			< 2.5s
Bounce Rate	X%			-10%
Conversions	X			+15%

Typical timeline:

• Week 1-2: Slight ranking fluctuations are normal
• Month 1-2: Rankings stabilize
• Month 3-6: Improvements become visible
• Month 6+: Long-term trends recognizable

Avoiding Common Mistakes

The Top 5 Relaunch Mistakes

1. Forgetting redirects → Solution: Create and check complete URL list

2. Ignoring SEO basics → Solution: Complete SEO checklist before go-live

3. No backup → Solution: Complete backup before every major step

4. Unrealistic timeline → Solution: Plan buffer, better later but correct

5. Lack of communication → Solution: Inform stakeholders, manage expectations

Conclusion

A successful relaunch requires careful planning and systematic approach. With this checklist, you have the most important points in view.

My advice: Take time for planning. A poorly prepared relaunch can mean months of SEO losses. Better to plan one more week than lose years of rankings.

Need support with your relaunch project? I’ll guide you from planning to successful go-live.

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• Website Relaunch - My relaunch service with SEO protection
• Website Migration - Technical migration without ranking loss
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