Web · Practical guide
Before you redesign your website, answer these questions
Plan the content, enquiry journey and launch responsibilities before choosing animations or adding more pages.
A better-looking site still needs a clear job
Imagine a visitor who likes your homepage but cannot tell what you offer, whether you have solved a similar problem or how to contact you. A redesign has not helped that visitor yet. The first decision is not a colour or an animation; it is what the visitor should understand and be able to do.
Write down the three questions your sales team answers most often. Use them to review the current site. Missing answers are useful starting points for the redesign brief, while decorative changes can wait until the important content has a place.
Give the website one primary job
Decide what a useful visit looks like. A service business may want a qualified enquiry; a product business may want a demonstration request. Pick the primary action before choosing animations or a page count. Secondary actions can support it without competing for attention.
Write a short description of your ideal visitor, their main question and the next step you want them to take. A visitor comparing suppliers needs evidence, scope and a way to ask questions. A returning customer may need support or account access instead.
Prepare content before estimating pages
Create a page inventory with the purpose, audience, required content and owner of each page. Home, services, projects, about and contact are common starting points, but include a page only when it answers a real question. Avoid repeating the same sales copy under several different headings.
For each project example, separate actual delivery from a product demonstration or concept. Use images you created or have permission to use. Keep a record of licences and do not present another company’s clients, awards or testimonials as your own.
Make the enquiry journey explicit
Decide which details you need to assess a project: contact information, business context, requirements and timeline are a useful starting point. Mark required fields clearly and ask only for information you can use. A long form is not automatically a better lead filter.
Specify what happens after submission. An email draft, WhatsApp draft and server-submitted form are different flows. The interface should describe the actual behaviour and should never show a delivered-success message when it has only opened another application.
Agree the technical and content responsibilities
Name the owner of the domain, hosting, email delivery, content updates and ongoing maintenance. Decide whether the team needs an editor or whether developer-managed content is sufficient. Include migration and redirects if an existing site is being replaced.
List external dependencies such as scheduling tools, CRM connections and analytics. Ask for each integration’s purpose, account owner and testing plan. Keep sensitive account access outside public documents and agree a secure handover method.
Test real tasks, not just screenshots
Before launch, use a phone and a desktop to find a service, open a project, submit a test enquiry and return to the homepage. Check keyboard navigation, visible focus, readable text, form errors and links. Repeat important journeys in the browsers your customers use.
Check that images have appropriate descriptions, pages have accurate titles, and primary actions do not overlap headings. Test slow loading and failed requests where relevant. A working homepage does not prove that the rest of the site is ready.
Build a useful search foundation
Use descriptive page titles, headings and link labels that match the page content. Publish original answers to questions your customers actually ask. Google’s people-first guidance emphasises useful, reliable content; producing more pages alone is not a ranking strategy.
After an authorised public launch, verify indexing settings and measure enquiries as well as visits. Keep preview environments out of search results. No website checklist can guarantee rankings, traffic or sales; evaluate the content against real customer questions and improve it over time.