The Marketing Manager’s Guide to Develop a Website Redesign Project Plan [+Free Template]

Are you ready to revamp your company website?

No matter if you do it in-house or hire an outsourced web design agency. You need to make sure you use a proven website redesign project plan.

It’s like the old saying:

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail!

Redesigning a website is not something you do in a day. And it’s definitely not something you should do on the fly.

Missing deadlines is a common problem when it comes to projects of any kind.

A lack of planning is the number one reasons for this.

In this article, we outline the steps you need to consider in your next website redesign project plan.

We will give you the steps in the order our team at Growmodo uses most often.

Of course, every project is different, but it can help you as a guideline.

If you like to have a ready-to-use template, you can download it here.

Why Do You Need a Website Redesign Project Plan?

Having a clear plan prevents issues down the line. But why exactly is good planning so important for a website redesign? 

‍A detailed project plan is like a roadmap. It helps you understand all the tasks and resources needed to meet deadlines.

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So, before getting into the specifics of how to build your plan, let's explore the key reasons why planning brings value.

1. Clarifies Vision and Objectives

Without clear goals tied to business outcomes, it becomes impossible to prioritize resources properly. An effective project plan starts by elaborating the core vision and objectives for the redesign.

What specific business goals are driving the redesign? Your plan should answer this. 

Are you aiming to increase sales, improve customer engagement, enhance brand recognition, or streamline user experience?

By defining these specific business goals, the project plan guides every decision in the redesign process.

2. Ensures Team Alignment and Communication

A redesign involves extensive collaboration, often with both internal teams and external vendors.

Without structured coordination, you can easily get miscommunications and knowledge gaps. Team members may work in silos rather than leveraging complementary strengths.

The plan acts like a map for your team, showing:

• What needs to be done
• Who is responsible for each part
• When things need to be finished

This helps prevent confusion. Everyone knows what they should be doing. It also sets up a clear way for team members to talk to each other and share updates.

3. Streamlines Decision-Making

When redesigning your website, there are numerous choices and changes that you need to make throughout the project.

A well-structured plan outlines the steps, the resources required, and the goals to be achieved. This reduces uncertainty around what must be done, making decision-making more straightforward.

Decision-making also often involves input from various team members, each with their expertise. A plan facilitates collaboration by clearly defining roles and responsibilities.

4. You Can Easily Track Progress and Performance

With a project plan, you can see at a glance what's been done, what's in progress, and what's still to be done. Everyone involved can get a clear picture without needing to ask around.

A good plan sets out goals and milestones. You can compare your progress against these checkpoints as the project progresses to see if you're on track.

5. Helps in Budget Management

Project costs can easily spiral out of control without a well-constructed budget and resource plan.

A plan lets you determine the cost of the whole project right from the start. You can set aside the right amount of money and ensure you don't spend too much.

Sometimes, unexpected things make the project more expensive. But with a good plan, you'll likely spot these surprises early.

14 Steps for a Winning Website Redesign Project Plan

Every web designer prefers a different structure and order when redesigning a website.

There is no fixed rule that you have to complete the project in a special order.

However, using the order we outlined in this article helped us to reduce the risk of revisions later on.

It is more important that you don’t skip important tasks and don’t set unrealistic deadlines.

Always consult with the person that is actually doing the work, what she or he thinks is a reasonable time frame to complete the task.

So let’s get started.

Professional web design companies will not dive headfirst into a redesign blind. You have to prepare before beginning the process.

A thorough appraisal of the existing website and used marketing technology is key.

Along with targeting website problems, there are other steps. Auditing of the site content and current site SEO auditing is necessary.

This should also include keyword research, competition analysis, and content gap analysis.

After you have a good overview of what’s currently working for you (and what isn’t) you can switch your attention to the people that the website is for:

Your customers.

Therefore, your next step is building a customer profile.

After that, you can start and the validation of any wireframes.

Once the team understands the extent of the work then you can continue to the new website plan.

The layout of a website can make or break retention and conversion rates.

Bounce rates will go through the roof if your site has a poor layout and structure.

When planning the layout of the site you should consider the following major design elements.

Each of these will play into the result and feel of the site. These decisions need to ring true to your business and company culture.

They will affect user conversions and sales.

• Unexpected additional project costs

Is it approachable?

Does it have the correct tone for your target market?

Will it get the user to do what YOU want them to do?

The look and feel of your website represent you as a company. Try to design & develop a website that embodies your brand message.

• Typography

Typography is often overlooked as a minor detail.

But, the truth is, the wrong font size, spacing, and type can kill your conversion rate.

Font and font families are crucial to legibility and feel.

Does the typography send the correct message?

Is all of your content readable and scannable?

Make it easy for your users to interact with the site and understand your messaging.

• Color Scheme

Psychology of color is a huge consideration.

The wrong color scheme can cost you leads and sales. Color accounts for a shocking 85% of purchasing decisions.

Do you want to stick with your companies current colors?

Will you complete a rebranding along with the launch of the new site?

• Textures

While you can’t touch a screen you want your user to have an interesting visual space.

Different textures within the homepage give visual interest and keep the user engaged.

Color and texture present a customer-focused as opposed to a brand focused experience.

• Mockups

Create several different options for the new site. This is your opportunity to change the look and feel of your company online. You want to throw it all at the wall.

Different mockups will let you see varying options. Seeing them all laid out you can come up with combinations you wouldn’t have thought of before.

Now that there is a plan for the layout of the site it’s time to create some killer content.

Some web companies leave this part to the end valuing design over content.

Our thought is why try and fit a square peg into a round hole?

You could spend months designing the site with dummy content and then realize you need much more space than the current layout provides.

By understanding the content you need each page to hold you can design more effectively.

Pre-planning and creation of content save implementation work on the backend of the design process.

Content creation and prep on the front end can save your timeline and budget.

Once you have the content created it’s time to merge the mockup and the content.

This will allow for accurate heading placements.

Give you a chance to correct meta tags. Perform alt tag implementation.

It gives the ability to change and adapt the font styles as needed.

In the mockup, you can define anchor texts and the links they will lead to.

This provides an accurate picture of the link siloing before you launch a live website.

You can make corrections to the mockup unfettered. Without interfering with the later search engine optimization of the pages.

Don’t worry about re-directs in a mockup.

Managing the content silo in the front end of the process helps you tailor the strategy from day one. This gives you an edge on your competition.

You can match the content silo to what the search engines want for your niche.

It makes your site more likely to reach position one and position zero faster.

So, you have the basic mockup. You have the content. You’ve chosen your typography and color scheme.

Now is the time for the website design.

Take your time and create great artwork. Consider a rebrand of your logo to go with the new feel of the site.

Did you decide to complete the redesign because your branding’s outdated (this is a great reason to redesign your website by the way)?

This is the time to work with artists and graphic designers to re-develop your image.

It is also the time to work on the design of the headers. Consider the different sections of each page.

• What’s going onto the footer?
• What will your menus include and how will the user interact with them?
• Do you have clear CTAs?
• What will make them enticing?
• Why will your customer enter your funnel?

Perform conversion rate optimization at every step.

You’ll want to design your buttons and how they function. Remember to create a favicon of your logo to personalize the site.

Development is the implementation of your website redesign project plan.

The developers have the tech-savvy to make your dreams come true.

Your outsource web design team will take the plan and use coding languages to make it a reality.

A real functional site.

There will be a lot going on in the backend staging site. The development stage includes designing how your 404s will look.

Making sure your images won’t affect page speed. Ensure URL consistency and verify the SSL.

They will perform CSS and Javascript validations of the coding. HTML validation is also included. The development stage allows for the installation of security protocols.

Activation of essential plugins. The creation of backup protocols and measures.

Your team has done their magic. They now hand over a fully developed and staging site.

This is the completed site in a safe environment that is not yet live on the internet.

This is the perfect time to test the site. Test that all the buttons work. Look through every image.

Do a test run of the subscription service. Go through all the content and make sure the layout is correct and pleasing to the eye.

You’ll test for page speed and proper coding optimizations. Usability testing. Brand consistency. Now is the best time to catch errors.

The last thing you want is your customers catching things your team didn’t pick up on.

Why?

Because they won’t tell you about it. They’ll just bounce away from the site.

There’s only so much you can do in a staging environment. Certain features won’t function in staging.

For instance, you can’t preview live social feeds or google review widgets.

Once you go live you can install analytics and third-party tracking software so you can see how the site is performing.

When your site is online, you’ll also configure the backup schedules and protocols for keeping the site in tip-top shape.

9. Marketing and SEO: Make Sure You Don’t Lose Your Traffic

Implementation of the marketing and SEO procedures comes next. This includes:

• Creation of an XML sitemap
• Configuration of your robots.txt file
• Submission of the homepage and all internal pages to search engines
• Submission of the XML sitemap to search engines
• Checking the formatting of each page in the search results on search engines
• Optimizing the featured images and excerpts for each page
• Optimizing the meta tags, titles, and descriptions for the SERP results

These steps will make sure your website begins to grow as soon as it goes live.

This begins to build the momentum before the official website launch.

It gives you a chance to build some social buzz as well.

10. Additional Testing: You Can’t Be Careful Enough

Now that you’re live and optimized for search, you’ll run the second round of testing. This can include but is not limited to:

• SEO Testing
• Marketing Testing
• Optimization Tests
• Database Tests
• Security Testing
• Site validation

You’ll verify that everything is still working now that you’re in a fully live environment.

11. Website Launch: Let’s Announce It To The World

The official website launch is an exciting day indeed. You’ll want to build some hype with a press release and social media posting.

Before the site launches and is fully customer-facing there are a few more optimizations to complete.

You’ll want to run a page speed test and perform on-page optimizations.

These include:

• Clean up backend and plugins
• Combine & minify scripts
• Combine & Minify CSS
• Change DNS

Once you’ve verified all these last optimizations it’s time for the launch! Do everything you can to boost your marketing buzz.

12. Maintenance and Optimization: Web Design is a Process, Not Project

Now that you have a brand new shiny website you can just sit back and relax right?

Wrong!

It is the time to implement a maintenance and optimization schedule.

If you want to automate this process in your business, check out Growmodo’s website management service.

You’ll want to keep all plugins and the backend systems updated.

Continue to produce content and implement new strategies to build your user base.

With more and more website visits, you can start analyzing the data you collect and make adjustments as needed.

Make sure security backups are working in the right way.

Analyze your page rankings as they come in. Continue to optimize each page for the target keywords that bring you business and that the SERPs want to rank the page for.

Consider factors like keyword cannibalization and your overall content silo whenever optimizing a page.

13. Gather Post-Launch User Feedback

The launch is not the end of optimizing the website redesign. You should gather direct feedback from users on their experience with the new site.

Getting user perspectives continuously allows you to keep enhancing engagement and conversion.

Also, direct feedback often surfaces issues that web analytics alone would not reveal.

Here is how to collect user feedback:

• Surveys and Feedback Forms: Place easy-to-use feedback forms or surveys on your website. Ask specific questions about the user experience, design, navigation, and content.
• Usability Testing: Conduct usability tests with users to observe how they interact with your website and where they might encounter difficulties.
• Analytics: Use web analytics tools to track user behavior on your site, identifying pages with high bounce rates or areas where users seem to get stuck.
• Social Media and Email: Encourage feedback through your social media channels or email. This can be a more informal way to gather insights from your audience.

Gathering user feedback after launching your redesigned website ensures your site remains a dynamic and user-focused platform.

14. Continue Expanding and Updating Content

Keeping site content dynamic and relevant ensures visitors have a reason to return. Fresh content is also a key factor in SEO. Regular updates signal to search engines that your website is active, helping to improve your rankings.

Create a schedule for publishing new blog posts. Cover industry news, tutorials, company updates, or any topics that interest your audience.

Don’t forget to showcase the success stories of your clients or customers.

New case studies and testimonials will boost your credibility and demonstrate the value of your products or services.

The recommended frequency is posting two to three times per week.

8 Mistakes To Avoid With Website Redesign Project Plans

Redoing your website can change how you connect with customers online. But if you don't plan carefully, what starts as a big opportunity can quickly become a mess of mixed-up efforts that don't lead anywhere.

Too often, attempts to improve a website fail from the start or don't do much, even after spending a lot of money and effort. Knowing what can go wrong helps you focus on what's most important when making your plan.

Mistake 1: Not Setting Clear Goals

One of the biggest mistakes you can make is being unclear about what you want to achieve with your new website.

Without specific goals, it's hard to know if you're on the right track or if your changes are making a difference.

If you're unclear about what to achieve, it's hard to decide what's most important to spend time and money on. After the website is finished, you might find it difficult to tell if it was worth the effort and cost.

Think about what you want from your new website. 

• Do you want more people to visit it?
• Do you want to sell more products?
• Do you want to increase page speed?

Write down your goals.

Also, make sure you can measure your goals. If you want more visitors, decide how many more. You can check later to see if you have reached your goal.

Finally, communicate the project goals to everyone working on it so they know what to aim for and can work together to achieve it.

Mistake 2: Underestimating the Importance of Content

Content should be at the heart of your redesign strategy, not an afterthought. 

Without useful, engaging content that answers user questions, even the best site design does little good.

Trying to plug in mismatched content as an afterthought once the site is built leads to a bad structure.

Plan your content early to align with your site's new structure and design. Evaluate existing content for relevance and gaps, and create new content that serves your goals and audience needs.

Keep your content fresh. Update old information and add new content regularly to keep visitors coming back.

Mistake 3: Ignoring Mobile Responsiveness

According to Think with Google, 74% of mobile users are more likely to revisit a site that works well on their phones. Additionally, 67% are more likely to buy from sites optimized for mobile.

Even more than half of the searches now happen on mobile devices.

So, not making your website work well on mobile devices is a big mistake.

Ensure your website looks good and works smoothly on all mobile devices.

Test specifically on mobile before launch. Test things like scrolling, tap targets, and speed.

Mistake 4: Overlooking SEO

Many marketing managers do a website overhaul focusing only on how it looks and works but neglect search engine optimization (SEO).

Ignoring SEO during a redesign results in a beautiful site that no one can find. This drastically reduces its effectiveness and return on investment.

When you redesign without optimizing for search engines, you risk losing the organic traffic you had on your old site. This happens when URL structures change without proper redirects, leading search engines and users to dead links.

To integrate SEO into your redesign, follow these steps:

• Start with thorough keyword research to understand what your target audience is searching for. This research will guide your content creation.
• Optimize every page on your website for SEO. Use the right keywords in titles, headings, and meta descriptions.
• Optimize images, minimize code, and use fast hosting to improve your site's performance.
• Build quality backlinks from reputable sites in your industry to boost your SEO

Mistake 5: Neglecting User Experience (UX)

A well-designed UX retains visitors and converts them into loyal customers.

WebFX shows that 89% of consumers turn to a competitor after a poor user experience. The stakes couldn't be higher.

Every element of your website's design should guide users toward taking action:

• Making a purchase
• Signing up for a newsletter
• Contacting your team

So, the user experience should guide your redesign process. Understand your audience. Use surveys, user testing, and analytics to gather insights into your users' needs and values.

For good user experience, ensure your website is accessible and provides a seamless experience across all devices.

Also, limit the number of menu items and logically organize content to enhance usability.

Mistake 6: Failing to Plan for Maintenance and Updates

Many view a website as a one-off project that, once completed, requires minimal attention. 

This mindset leads to many problems. A website constantly requires updates to ensure optimal performance, security, and user engagement.

Content on a non-maintained website goes stale. Integrations break without monitoring and vendor licenses lapse without renewal.

So, in reality, the redesign project never ends.

To make this process easy, partner with services such as Growmodo. Growmodo provides access to a team of experts who can handle various aspects of website maintenance.

Also, hiring a full-time team for website maintenance is sometimes not feasible. Partnering with a service like Growmodo offers a cost-effective solution, providing top-tier expertise without the overhead costs of an in-house team.

Mistake 7: Skipping the Testing Phase

No matter how skilled your design and development team is, there's always a chance for bugs and errors to slip through.

Testing helps catch these issues before your audience encounters them.

It allows you to examine your site from a user's perspective, ensuring navigation is intuitive, content is easily accessible, and the overall experience is positive.

You get to catch clunky experiences in staging, like checkout failures, image sizing, and bad links. This prevents real visitors from facing frustrating problems. 

Rigorous testing also confirms the site meets requirements around security, accessibility, and responsiveness.

Mistake 8: Ignoring Feedback

Many marketing managers invest heavily in the initial overhaul and expect immediate impact but then ignore direct customer input.

This wastes a valuable opportunity for continual improvement based on real data.

Users point out issues and pain points that may not be obvious to the project team.

So, don’t wait until the end of the redesign to seek feedback. Collect it throughout the process, from initial concepts to the final stages, to guide your decisions.

To gather insights, use surveys, feedback forms, social media, and direct user testing.

Now, collecting feedback isn’t enough. You also need to analyze it and take action. Identify common themes and prioritize changes that will have the most significant impact on user experience.

4 Best Practices When Developing a Website Redesign Project Plan

Many projects that start strong end up struggling because teams overlook key details. Without good directions, you risk getting lost or having delays. 

Here are tips to set you up for success.

Best Practice 1: Start with a Strategy

It's easy to jump right into a website redesign by playing with new layouts and color schemes.

The best approach is to define an overall plan and goals first.

Have a clear strategy that aligns with your business goals. 

• Understand your target audience
• Define your key performance indicators (KPIs)
• Establish what success looks like for the project

Best Practice 2: Emphasize User-Centric Design

It's tempting to redesign your website, focusing mostly on visual elements like images, layouts, and color schemes because they look obviously "new". 

But research shows that really optimizing ease-of-use and convenience has much bigger payoffs.

For example, every $1 spent specifically on user experience (UX) design yields $100 back in value — a 9900% return on investment. 

Simple improvements like faster page loads, clearer navigation, and mobile responsiveness go very far in pleasing visitors more than cosmetic facelifts.

So, learn what tasks frustrate the users most. Then, evolve updates to tackle those pain points specifically.

Best Practice 3: Prioritize SEO from the Start

Most redesigned pages often lose keyword rankings completely at launch if you don’t have an SEO transition plan. 

Trying to regain lost positions takes months of extra work.

Use these practices to implement an SEO transition plan:

• Use 301 Redirects: These tell search engines where the new content lives, preserving the SEO value of the old pages.
• Maintain Keyword Optimization: Ensure your redesigned pages are optimized for the same keywords as before unless your strategy has intentionally shifted.
• Audit for Broken Links: Redesigns often result in broken links. Use tools like Ahrefs to audit your site for broken links and fix them promptly.
• Update Your Sitemap: Submit an updated sitemap to search engines immediately after your redesigned site goes live.
• Monitor Performance: After launch, closely monitor your site's SEO performance using tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console. Pay attention to metrics like traffic, rankings, and bounce rates to identify issues early.

Best Practice 4: Plan for Scalability and Flexibility

Design your website with the future in mind. Use a content management system (CMS) that allows for easy updates and scalability.

Even if you’re launching mainly informational pages initially, ensure the CMS and templates easily allow adding advanced functionality later, like ecommerce, subscriptions, etc, without mass rework.

Brainstorm features to include today and how offerings may grow over the next few years.

Also, plan for integrating APIs and third-party services that extend the functionality of your website.

How Do You Estimate A Website Redesign? Key Considerations

When planning a website redesign, you should accurately estimate the scope, time, and cost for a successful project outcome. 

Here are some key considerations to guide your estimation process:

Consideration 1: Scope of the Redesign

The scope outlines the breadth and depth of changes planned for your site. 

It ranges from minor visual updates to a complete overhaul of the website's architecture, functionality, and content.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Are you updating the visual design, reworking the site structure, enhancing functionality, or all of the above?
• Will visual identity change involve logo and branding updates?
• How many site sections/pages will the redesign touch?
• Are there any new sections/functionality areas planned?

When you define and understand the scope of your website redesign, you can set a realistic foundation for estimating the project.

Consideration 2: Feature Requirements

Detail the features and functionalities your redesigned site will need.

Feature requirements directly impact your project's complexity, cost, and timeline.

Ensure that the features you plan to include support your broader business goals. 

For example, if increasing sales is a goal, you might require e-commerce functionalities, secure payment gateways, and product recommendations.

Consideration 3: Content Creation and Migration

Assess the content that needs to be created, revised, or migrated. 

Large volumes of content or the need for high-quality, SEO-optimized writing will increase the project's duration and cost.

Also, factor in if you’ll have new types of content, like interactive modules, videos, and infographics.

Consideration 4: Technical Infrastructure

Evaluate the technical requirements of your new website, including hosting, CMS, databases, and third-party services. 

These elements influence both the initial cost and ongoing maintenance expenses.

If You Fail to Plan, You Plan to Fail! Get Your Website Redesign Project Plan Right

A website redesign is a major time and financial investment. Building a quality website that will be competitive in your niche is not cheap or fast.

But, with a thorough website redesign project plan, you can stick to your timeline and budget.

Think of a website redesign as a home construction project. Well, more like a total tear-down and re-build.

You have to lay the foundation of the home before you build the walls.

The walls need a framework before you install drywall. The electrical needs approval and permits before masonry continue.

The same step-by-step process applies to web design.

Without a detailed plan, the project can get away from you. Without a strong foundation, you’ll end up with a shaky final project.

What’s the point of a re-brand or re-design if on launch day the site crashes?

Are you ready to make your website redesign plan? We have you covered.

Download our free website redesign project template today to start making your website dreams a reality.

Need some help on where to start? We will be happy to help you develop your vision. Learn more about our web design services here.

Get Started With Your Website Design Today

Upgrading your website is tough but super important. Growmodo makes it easy with our experienced team guiding you through each step.

We start by learning about your business and website needs at a free consultation. Then we:

• Suggest plans matching your budget
• Handle all technical parts like design and coding
• Test everything fully to catch issues early
• Improve it over time to keep visitors happy

Get started now by booking a call today to discuss your website redesign with our team.

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