Start a website redesign by auditing what already works in your analytics, defining the one business outcome the new site must move, and crawling your current site to map every URL before anyone touches design. Do those three first and the redesign has a brief, a success metric, and a redirect plan. Skip them and you rebuild guesswork.
Most guides on how to start a website redesign run to 15 steps. Here is the short version we use at Gleam before any Webflow rebuild.
How to start a website redesign: the seven steps
- Audit what works. Pull 12 months of analytics and Search Console. List what brings traffic, what converts, and what nobody visits.
- Define the one outcome. Demo bookings, quote requests, signups: pick one and write it as a number to beat.
- Crawl and map every URL. Export a full crawl of the live site. The redirect map is built from this later.
- Mark each page keep, merge, or cut. Keep anything that ranks or converts. Merge thin duplicates. Cut the rest.
- Write the brief. Outcome, page list, platform, budget, deadline. One page, before you talk to any agency.
- Choose the platform and the team. The brief decides this.
- Build the redirect map and launch checklist before design sign-off, not the week of launch.
What to do before hiring anyone
Steps one to five are yours, and they cost days, not money. An agency that starts from a blank page designs what looks good in a Figma frame. One that starts from your brief designs for the number you wrote down. If you cannot yet say why the old site is failing, read why a website redesign matters first.
The brief also sets scope: ten pages that convert beat sixty that merely exist. Our website redesign services page lists what we ask for on the first call.
How to redesign a website without losing SEO
Rankings live on URLs, not designs. Keep every URL that ranks exactly as it is. Where one must change, write a one-to-one 301 redirect and keep the page's title, H1, and core copy close to the original. Google's site move documentation covers the mechanics: redirect old to new, update internal links, submit the new sitemap, leave the redirects in place.
If the redesign also changes platforms, say WordPress to Webflow, the redirect map is the biggest piece of the job and most of what our website migration work involves. After launch, watch Search Console for 404s and dropped impressions for four weeks; our Webflow SEO guide covers the platform settings. That is how to start a website redesign safely: inventory first, design second.
Worried about rankings in the move?
Send us your current URL and we will outline a free redirect and migration plan before any design work starts. No obligation.
Frequently asked questions
Does a website redesign affect SEO?
Yes, in either direction. Rankings depend on URLs, content, internal links, and speed. Change those carelessly and traffic drops. Keep ranking URLs, redirect anything that moves, preserve titles and copy on top pages, and a faster, cleaner site usually gains. The risk sits in the migration, not the visual design.
How long does it take to redesign a website?
A 10 to 20 page marketing site with an agency typically takes six to ten weeks from brief to launch. Sites with hundreds of URLs run several months. The biggest delay we see is content and approvals, not build time, so finish the brief and copy before design starts.
What is the first step in a website redesign?
Audit the current site before anything else. Pull analytics and Search Console for the last 12 months and list what brings traffic, what converts, and what is dead weight. That audit gives you the one outcome to design for and the URL inventory the redirect map needs. Design comes after.
Get a Redesign Teardown.
Send us your URL. We will tell you what is working, what is not, and what a redesign would change, before you spend anything.
