A website redesign checklist that protects what already works

Make an inventory of the current site

Every redesign should start with a spreadsheet, not a mood board. List every page on the current site with its exact address. Your sitemap, often found at yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml, is a good starting point, and Google Search Console shows which pages Google has indexed and which ones get clicks.

Add a column for the page title, one for clicks over the last few months, and one for what happens to the page on the new site.

Look beyond the menu. Old landing pages from ad campaigns and PDF price lists often aren't linked from the menu at all, and some of them still get visits. And keep a full backup of the old site, or at least its text and images, in case a page needs rebuilding later.

You'll probably find a handful of pages doing nearly all the work. For most service businesses that's the homepage, two or three service pages and the contact page. Those are the ones to protect. The rest matter less than they look.

Decide which URLs stay and which redirect

The safest URL is one that doesn't change. If /pool-maintenance/ brings in enquiries today, keep /pool-maintenance/ on the new site unless there's a strong reason not to.

Where an address has to change, or two old pages merge into one, set up a 301 redirect from the old address to the closest matching new page. Not the homepage. Sending everything to the homepage is the lazy version, and Google tends to treat those redirects as if the page had gone.

Pages you're dropping for good, like a promotion from 2023, can be left to return a 404. That's fine if nothing important links to them.

A caveat a salesperson might skip. A redesign done carefully usually holds the rankings you had. It doesn't lift them by itself. Gains come later, from better content and faster pages, and they take weeks to show. Be wary of anyone who says the new look alone will move you up Google.

Moving content across without thinning it

Google ranks pages largely on what they say. If a service page ranks for office fit-out in Dubai and the new version cuts it down to two lines under a large photo, expect it to slip.

Carry over the page titles and meta descriptions that are working. Keep the headings close to what they were. Move the body text across even if you rewrite it to read better, because rewriting is fine and deleting is where the damage happens.

If the new design looks cleaner without all that text, there's usually a way to keep both. Use a short intro at the top and put the detail further down the page, where people who want it will scroll.

Images and files count too. If people link to your PDF brochure, or your project photos turn up in Google Images, keep those file addresses or redirect them.

Check internal links as well. Older pages often link to service pages by their old addresses, and those links should be updated to the new URLs rather than left to bounce through redirects for years.

Forms, buttons and tracking codes

Test every contact form on the new site with a real submission to a real inbox before launch. It's common for a form on a rebuilt site to send to an address nobody checks any more, and for nobody to notice until enquiries have been quiet for a month.

Check the WhatsApp and click-to-call buttons use the right number with the +971 country code. Tap them on a phone. Desktop clicks prove very little here.

Then tracking. If you use Google Analytics or a Meta pixel, they need to be on the new site from the first day, otherwise you lose the before-and-after comparison that tells you whether the redesign worked. Write down your enquiry numbers from forms and WhatsApp for the month before launch, so you've got something to compare against.

Last, make sure the whole site runs on HTTPS and the old http addresses redirect to it.

Testing on the phones your customers use

Most people who visit a UAE small business website are on a phone. Test there first, not on a large office monitor.

Use a real iPhone and a real Android, on mobile data rather than office Wi-Fi. Open the menu and close it. Fill in the form with one thumb. Check the phone number dials and the map opens. Read the prices at arm's length.

Do this on a test copy of the site before it replaces the live one, where you can. Fixes are cheaper and calmer before customers see anything.

Small things show up this way that never appear in a design review, like a WhatsApp button covering the submit button on smaller screens. Our mobile-friendly website guide has a longer list.

Watching Search Console after go-live

Choose the launch week with some care. Not the days before Eid, and not the last week of a big promotion. If something goes wrong, you want a quiet few days to fix it before enquiries pick up.

Once the new site is live, submit the sitemap in Google Search Console so Google picks up the new structure sooner. It takes two minutes.

Over the following weeks, check the Pages report for 404 errors and add redirects for any old URL that's still getting visits or links. Expect some movement in rankings for a while. A small wobble is normal. A sharp drop on a page that used to bring in enquiries usually points to a missing redirect or missing content, and both are fixable. Check again at the one-month mark. After that, the old site's addresses should rarely come up, and you can stop looking every week.

If you'd rather hand the whole job over, our website redesign service starts from your current site, not a blank page. Call or WhatsApp +971 52 292 3875 and send us the address.

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