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Website relaunch checklist: 12 points against nasty surprises
A relaunch is like renovating a house while it stays open for business: the visible part usually succeeds, what gets lost is the invisible. Google rankings, old links, form enquiries, image rights. This website relaunch checklist with twelve points in three phases makes sure the new website does not launch with a crash. It comes from our own relaunch projects, from Rotkreuz in the Canton of Zug, for SMEs across Switzerland.
The 12 points at a glance
| No. | Point | Phase | Who | Effort |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Set the goal, one sentence | Before the project | Owner | low |
| 2 | Content inventory | Before the project | Owner | medium |
| 3 | Build the address list | Before the project | Owner | low |
| 4 | Ownership check | Before the project | Owner | low |
| 5 | Structure before design | During the project | both | medium |
| 6 | Produce content in parallel | During the project | both | high |
| 7 | Check mobile first | During the project | both | low |
| 8 | Redirect plan | During the project | Developer | medium |
| 9 | Test forms and functions | Go-live day | Developer | low |
| 10 | No day without a website | Go-live day | Developer | low |
| 11 | Let Google know | Go-live day | Developer | low |
| 12 | Watch for two weeks | Go-live day | both | low |
The table already shows the pattern: the groundwork sits with the owner, the craft with the developer. Both are needed, neither replaces the other.
Before the project: points 1 to 4
1. Set the goal, one sentence
Why it matters: “The new website should …”, bring more enquiries? Be found more easily? Finally be maintainable? Without this one sentence the relaunch turns into a matter of taste.
How to do it: Write the sentence down and hold every decision against it. Add a number you know today: enquiries per month, visitors per month, minutes per text change. After the relaunch, this number tells you whether the goal was reached.
Typical mistake: Three goals at once. Whoever wants more enquiries, a new logo and an online shop gets half of each.
2. Content inventory
Why it matters: A list of all pages with an honest verdict: keep, revise, cut. Often five pages carry ninety percent of the traffic, and thirty pages carry nothing.
How to do it: Open the visitor statistics for the last twelve months and note the visits per page. Then decide line by line: stays, gets revised, goes. Pages with visitors but no purpose are not deleted but redirected to the matching new page.
Typical mistake: Taking everything along. The new website then inherits forty outdated pages that nobody maintains and that suggest the rest is not current either.
3. Build the address list
Why it matters: Every existing page address is known to Google, printed on business cards or linked in newsletters. This list is the foundation for the redirect plan in point 8.
How to do it: Export the addresses from the old website’s sitemap or from Google Search Console. Add PDFs, images and subpages that are not visible in the navigation. A table with two columns is enough: old address, visits per year.
Typical mistake: Building the list on go-live day, when the old website is already switched off. Then the source is gone.
4. Ownership check
Why it matters: Domain, access credentials, content, images: what belongs to you, what to the old provider? Otherwise you may stand there on go-live day without a domain, or without the right to reuse your own photos.
How to do it: Check who the domain is registered to, who holds the credentials for hosting and the website, and what the old contract says about content and images. Clear this up before cancelling, not after. The guide: Who owns your website?
Typical mistake: The domain is registered to the old agency. Then the move depends on the goodwill of a partner you are just leaving.
During the project: points 5 to 8
5. Structure before design
Why it matters: First the question “which pages, in which order, for which visitors?”, then colours and images. The best looks cannot rescue a confusing structure. How order makes a broad offering tangible is shown by Alianto: twelve core services, clearly organised from administration to member management.
How to do it: Sketch the page structure on a sheet of paper before anyone opens a design draft. One sentence per page: who comes here, and what should that person do next? With two distinct target groups, a separate entry point for each pays off, as on the easyCAFM website for public authorities and cleaning companies.
Typical mistake: The design is approved before the structure is settled. Pages are then squeezed into a grid that was never meant for them.
6. Produce content in parallel
Why it matters: Text and images are the most common cause of delay. A finished website then waits for weeks on three paragraphs and two photos.
How to do it: Start on the text on day one, not when “the design is done”. Use the inventory from point 2 as your work list and begin with the five most important pages. Book a photo shoot early, stock images stand out. With several languages, each language is planned in full, not as a token translation, see multilingual website in Switzerland.
Typical mistake: Placeholder text in the draft. It hides that the real text is longer, shorter or does not exist at all.
7. Check mobile first
Why it matters: The majority of your visitors come from a phone. What does not work there does not work.
How to do it: Every review round begins on the phone, not on the large screen. Test on a real device with a mobile data connection. Watch load time, legibility and whether buttons can be hit with a thumb. Why load time costs you customers directly is explained in the article on load time.
Typical mistake: The review happens in the meeting room on the projector. Everything looks fine there.
8. Redirect plan
Why it matters: The most important invisible point. Every old address from point 3 gets a permanent redirect (status 301) to its new counterpart. Without it you lose Google rankings and every link ever placed. More on this in the redirects section below and in the migration article.
How to do it: Add a column “new address” to the address list. Every old page gets exactly one target that matches in content. Pages without a counterpart point to the nearest parent page, not wholesale to the home page.
Typical mistake: Redirecting all old addresses to the home page. Google treats this much like an error page, and visitors do not find what they were looking for.
On go-live day: points 9 to 12
9. Test forms and functions, for real
Why it matters: The classic among relaunch mishaps: the lovely new site collects enquiries for two weeks that nobody receives.
How to do it: Actually submit every form once and check that the message arrives in the right inbox, including a look in the spam folder. The same for newsletter sign-up, appointment booking, downloads and the phone links on mobile.
Typical mistake: Testing goes to the developer’s address, never to the inbox that will later receive the enquiries.
10. No day without a website
Why it matters: Every hour of downtime costs enquiries and trust, and Google remembers error pages.
How to do it: The old site stays online until the new one demonstrably works. The new website is fully checked beforehand under a test address. The switch-over happens outside business hours, with someone watching and a way back if something goes wrong.
Typical mistake: The old hosting is cancelled on Friday evening, the new website is due to go live on Monday. In between lies a weekend with an error message.
11. Let Google know
Why it matters: Google finds the new structure on its own too, but slowly. Helping it along shortens the phase in which old and new addresses are mixed up in the index.
How to do it: Submit the new page overview (sitemap) in Google Search Console. In the case of a domain change, also report the change of address there. Check the reports on error pages and coverage during the first days. What to do if the website is not found afterwards is covered in website not found on Google.
Typical mistake: Search Console still belongs to the old provider. Then you see nothing.
12. Watch for two weeks
Why it matters: Most relaunch damage does not show on go-live day but in the days after: rankings slip, a redirect is missing, a form jams.
How to do it: Five minutes a day: error pages in Search Console, enquiries in the inbox, rankings of the five most important pages. Only then is the relaunch finished, and only now do you cancel with the old provider.
Typical mistake: After the launch the team celebrates, and nobody reads the error list of the first week.
Redirects: what a redirect plan looks like
A redirect with status 301 tells browsers and search engines: this page has moved permanently. Google transfers the old address’s standing to the new one, visitors land in the right place without a detour. The plan is a simple table:
| Old URL | New URL | Status |
|---|---|---|
| /services.html | /en/services/ | 301 |
| /services/webdesign.html | /en/services/websites/ | 301 |
| /news/2023/new-location | /en/blog/new-location/ | 301 |
| /team.html | /en/about-us/ | 301 |
| /offer-2019.pdf | /en/services/ | 301 |
Three rules. First: every redirect points to the closest page in content, not to the home page. Second: no chains. If A points to B and B points to C, A should point directly to C. Third: redirects stay. Switching them off after a year means every old link in newsletters and directories runs into nothing again.
When moving off a website builder, the old addresses are often cryptic, with strings of numbers at the end. They still get a target. After launch, call up every row of the table once in the browser.
What a relaunch costs and how long it takes
We code a focused company website from about CHF 5’000 one-off. Multilingual or feature-rich websites are higher. We quote the fixed price after a first assessment. Hosting is optional and costs a fixed amount from CHF 300 per year. What else goes into the price is explained in the article What does a website cost in Switzerland?
The relaunch-specific effort sits in two items, which we calculate at our hourly rate of CHF 180:
- Redirect mapping: For 20 to 40 old addresses we reckon with 2 to 4 hours, that is CHF 360 to 720. The prerequisite is the address list from point 3. With several hundred addresses, for example from an old blog, the effort rises accordingly.
- Migration of existing content: Taking over text, trimming it, recropping and renaming images. We reckon with 15 to 30 minutes per page. For 20 pages that is 5 to 10 hours, that is CHF 900 to 1’800. If you deliver the text already revised, this item drops considerably.
On duration, from our projects: Alianto went live in one week, Highlights Schwyz with magazine, weather, tours and business directory in two weeks, the trilingual SFH association website in three weeks. So the build time is rarely the bottleneck. What delays projects is missing text (point 6) and open ownership questions (point 4).
Content and images: what belongs to you before you cancel
Before you cancel with the old provider, secure what you want to keep using. Text you wrote or paid for yourself usually belongs to you. Get it as an export or, if need be, page by page. Images are trickier: stock photos are often licensed for the old website only, and photos by the old provider’s photographer cannot be taken over without an agreement. Ask in writing which rights you hold, and get the original files, not the compressed web versions. Logo files, fonts and colour values belong on the same list.
Only once everything is secured and the new website has been stable for two weeks do you cancel. If you have a website built by us, you receive all files and credentials at the end, more on the Websites page.
The honest note
Points 1 to 4 you can and should handle yourself, nobody knows your content better. Points 5 to 12 are our craft: relaunches done so that nothing is lost on go-live day and the website belongs to you afterwards. If you want to keep working on findability after the relaunch, the SEO page is the natural next step. Examples of real relaunch times can be found under projects; your range is named by the price calculator as a fixed-price first estimate in two minutes.
Frequently asked questions
How long does a website relaunch take?
In our projects the build time is between one and three weeks, depending on scope and number of languages. What really delays a relaunch is missing text and unresolved ownership questions. Preparing content and the address list in advance shortens the project more than anything else.
Will I lose my Google rankings in a relaunch?
Not if every old address is redirected with a 301 to the matching new page and the content of your most important pages is preserved. Short fluctuations in the first weeks are normal. Lasting losses almost always come from missing redirects or deleted pages that had visitors.
What is a 301 redirect?
A permanent redirect. It tells browsers and search engines that a page has moved to a new address for good. Google transfers the old address's standing to the new one, and visitors land in the right place automatically, including via old links in newsletters or directories.
When can I cancel with the old provider?
Only once the new website has run stably for two weeks, all redirects work and you have secured the domain, content, images and access credentials. Cancelling earlier risks losing material you still need, or a domain that is registered to the old provider.
What does a website relaunch cost?
We code a focused company website from about CHF 5'000 one-off; multilingual or feature-rich sites are higher. We quote a fixed price after a first assessment. Redirect mapping and migration of existing content are billed by effort at CHF 180 per hour, typically a few hours up to one or two days. Hosting is optional from CHF 300 per year.
Can I reuse the content of the old website?
Your own text, usually yes. For images it depends on the licence: stock images are often licensed for the old website only, and photos taken by the old provider's photographer need an agreement. Clarify this in writing and ask for the original files, not the compressed web versions.
What do I need to prepare myself as the owner?
Four things: the goal in one sentence, the content inventory, the list of all existing addresses and the ownership check for domain, access credentials and content. Everything else, from structure through redirects to the switch-over, is the developer's job.
Sounds like your project?