Before You Redesign, Decide What Your Website Needs to Do.

It is natural to start a website project with visual references. A typeface you love. A striking hero. A smooth interaction. Those references are useful because they show the feeling you want the site to have. Give each of them a clear job, and the design brief becomes much more useful to everyone working from it.

Define the job before the layout.

Write a plain-language description of what your website should help people do. For a service business, that could be understanding your offer, deciding whether it fits their needs, and starting a relevant conversation. A retailer, a SaaS product, or a recruitment-led business may need a different path.

Then decide how you will know the site is doing that job. It might be more qualified inquiries, fewer “what exactly do you do?” questions on sales calls, or more visitors reaching a service page from search. Record where those numbers stand today, before anything changes, so you have something to compare against after launch.

Keep that job close when choosing what belongs on the page. A beautiful section can still leave the visitor asking a basic question. The brief should make room for both expression and explanation. That balance between clear messaging and thoughtful design is the core of our website design and development work.

Collect the questions people actually ask.

Talk to the people who handle inquiries and customer conversations. What do prospects need to understand? What do they misunderstand? What makes them pause? Your site search, contact form submissions, and the search terms people already use to find you are useful sources too. Turn those observations into a list of questions the website needs to answer.

Group the questions by purpose. Some belong on the homepage, where people are getting their bearings. Others need a dedicated service, about, or contact page. This exercise helps you build a structure around the visitor’s needs rather than the organization’s internal chart.

The same list does more than shape the sitemap. Clear answers to real questions are what search engines look for, and what AI search tools draw on when they summarize and cite a brand. The approach also works beyond the website: a content plan built on better questions follows the same principle.

Connect the pages with intention.

Give each page one primary purpose, then decide where it should lead.

A homepage can introduce your business and point people toward a relevant service.

A service page can explain the scope and invite a conversation.

A clients page can give context for the work you are able to share.

A contact page can set expectations for what happens after someone gets in touch.

Use labels that make the destination clear. “Explore our services” sets an expectation. “Learn more” or “Click here” leaves the visitor guessing. Descriptive link text also helps people using screen readers and gives search engines a clearer signal about the page being linked to. Nielsen Norman Group’s guidance on writing better link labels is a good reference. Navigation, body links, and calls to action should all help visitors make an informed next move.

Protect what is already working.

A redesign often changes more than the look. Page addresses move, content gets merged, and sections are retired. Each of these changes can cost search visibility the existing site has earned over years.

Before launch, list every page that currently brings in search traffic, earns links from other sites, or leads to inquiries. Map each old URL to its closest equivalent on the new site, and set up permanent (301) redirects so visitors and search engines reach the right place. Google’s documentation on moving a site with URL changes explains the process step by step.

Also check the less visible details. Page titles, meta descriptions, headings, internal links, and structured data tend to get lost when content moves into new templates. If you are unsure what the current site is doing well, a technical SEO review before the redesign is far cheaper than recovering lost visibility afterwards.

Review the whole experience.

Once the design takes shape, walk through it as a visitor would:

Try a small screen. Many visitors will arrive on a phone, so check that the most important information and actions are easy to reach there.

Use a keyboard. Move through the site with Tab and Enter alone. Every link, menu, and form field should be reachable, and the focused element should always be visible. W3C’s guidance on keyboard accessibility explains why this matters.

Read the forms and messages. That includes labels, error messages, and the confirmation that appears after someone submits. These small moments decide whether an inquiry feels finished or uncertain.

Check the motion. Ask whether each animation supports the content. Then turn on your device’s reduce-motion setting and confirm the experience still makes sense. MDN’s explanation of prefers-reduced-motion covers how a site can respect that setting.

After launch, return to the measures you defined at the start. Watch search performance, inquiries, and the paths people take through the site, and adjust as you learn. We describe our own approach on our accessibility statement page.

Questions about planning a redesign.

What should a website redesign brief include? A clear description of what the site should help visitors do, how success will be measured, the questions the site needs to answer, a page structure with a purpose for each page, and a plan for protecting existing search visibility. Visual references belong in the brief too, each with a clear job.

Will a redesign hurt my SEO? It can if URLs change without redirects or if content that ranks well is removed. Careful URL mapping, 301 redirects, and a review of titles and content before launch greatly reduce that risk. Some short-term fluctuation is still normal while search engines recrawl the site.

Do we need a full redesign? Not always. Sometimes clearer messaging, a stronger service page, or a better conversion path does more than a new look. Seeing how your channels connect can help you decide what needs to change first.

A redesign is an opportunity to make the business clearer, not just to make the pages newer. A strong visual direction, a thoughtful structure, and a useful next step should work together. That is a brief worth designing around.

Planning a new website? Tell us what your site needs to do, and we’ll help you shape the brief.