Website redesign checklist: 10 things to gather before you hire a designer

Most website redesigns don’t run late because of design. They run late because the logins are lost, the content isn’t written and nobody agreed what the site was for.

The good news is that all of that can be sorted before you talk to a designer. Gather these ten things and your first call becomes a planning session instead of a scavenger hunt.

1. The real reason you’re redesigning

“It looks dated” is a fine starting point, but dig one level deeper. Do you want more inquiries, better-fit clients, higher prices or less time answering the same emails? Write down the one result that would make the project a success. It becomes the test for every decision that follows.

2. Your numbers

If you have analytics, pull the basics: your most visited pages, where visitors come from and which pages lead to an inquiry or sale. Even rough numbers tell a designer what’s working and what to protect.

3. Who the site is for

Describe your best two or three types of visitor in a sentence each, and what each one needs to find. A site that tries to talk to everyone usually ends up talking to no one.

4. A content inventory

List every page on your current site and mark each one keep, cut or rewrite. Content is the most common cause of delays, so start writing early. A designer can work around a missing photo. A missing About page is harder.

5. Your brand assets

Collect your logo files (ideally vector files like SVG or PDF), color values, fonts and any photography you own. If you can’t find them, that’s worth knowing now. It might be a sign your brand needs some attention too.

6. Sites you like, and sites you don’t

Send three to five websites you admire and say what you like about each one: the layout, the photography, the way it feels to scroll. Sites you dislike are just as useful. “Not like this” saves hours.

7. Must-have features

Bookings, a shop, a newsletter signup, client logins, a blog, forms that connect to your CRM. Make a list and mark what’s essential at launch and what can wait. Features drive cost more than pages do.

8. Every login you’ll need

Your domain registrar, hosting, current CMS, analytics, email provider and anything else plugged into the site. Put them in a password manager you can share. Lost DNS access has delayed more launches than any design decision.

9. A plan to protect your search rankings

Note which pages bring in search traffic today. When those pages move or change address, they need redirects so Google and your visitors land in the right place. Skip this and a beautiful new site can quietly lose the traffic the old one earned.

10. A budget range, a deadline and one decision maker

A range is enough, and it helps a studio recommend the right approach rather than guess. Share any hard deadline, like a launch or event. And agree who has the final say. Projects with five approvers take five times as long.

Bring the list to your first call

You don’t need every answer before you start, and a good studio will help you fill the gaps. But arriving with this list means less time spent on admin and more time spent on making something great.

Planning a redesign? Send us your list, even a half-finished one, and we’ll tell you what we’d do first.