Website Redesign Checklist for Service Businesses

The website redesign checklist, in one screen

A website redesign checklist for a service business has three parts: measure the old site before you touch it, build the new one to keep what worked and fix what did not, and launch it so Google and your customers land in the right place on day one. The redesigns that go wrong skip the first and third parts. They start with colours.

1. Before: record your rankings, your traffic, every page address, every form and where it sends, and your current speed numbers.
2. Build: same domain, a page for every service and area, your own photos, a quote form with an automatic reply, speed measured against Google's targets.
3. Launch: permanent redirects from every old address, the same name, phone and hours as your Google Business Profile, Search Console told about the change, every form tested with a real enquiry.

Should you redesign at all?

Redesign when the site fails at its job, not when you are bored of it. The job is to be found, to load fast on a phone, to say what you do and where, and to turn a visitor into a call or a quote request. Run the free SEO audit first. If it comes back with a strong score and the phone is still quiet, the problem may be your Google Business Profile or your follow-up, and a redesign will not touch either; see why your website isn't getting calls before you spend anything.

Redesign when the audit shows slow mobile speed you cannot fix inside the current platform, when adding a service or area page is a fight, when the form emails an inbox and nothing more, or when the site cannot show your licence, insurance and real work where a visitor would look.

Part 1: Measure before you touch anything

You cannot tell whether the new site is better if you did not record the old one. Thirty minutes now saves an argument later.

Record	Where	Why
Every page address on the site	Your sitemap, or a crawl; the free audit lists the pages it read	Each one needs a redirect or a reason not to
Which pages get search traffic	Google Search Console, Pages report, last 12 months	Those pages must survive with their content and get a redirect
Which searches you appear for	Search Console, Queries report	The new pages must still answer them
Mobile and desktop speed	PageSpeed Insights or the free audit	The new site has to beat these numbers, not match them
Every form, and where it sends	Fill each one in yourself	Forms are the first thing to break silently in a redesign
Name, phone, hours as shown on Google	Your Google Business Profile	The new site must match exactly

Part 2: What the new site must keep and must fix

Keep the domain. A new domain throws away everything Google has learned about you. If the name has changed, redirect the old domain, but build on the one with the history unless there is a legal reason not to.

Keep the pages that work. A page that ranks and brings calls gets rebuilt with the same address, the same topic and better content. It does not get merged into a "Services" page because the new template has fewer menu items.

Fix the structure. One page per service, one per area you serve, written about that service and that area, with your own photos. This is what local ranking rewards and what a visitor needs to confirm you do their job near them.

Fix the first screen. What you do, where, and one button. Phone number tappable in the header on mobile.

Fix the form. Ask for what you need to quote, nothing more, and send the visitor a text within a minute confirming the request. The contractor website checklist has the five fields that cover most trades; lead follow-up automation covers the reply.

Fix the speed, with numbers. Google publishes its targets at web.dev: main content within 2.5 seconds, a response to taps within 200 milliseconds, and almost no content jumping while the page loads. Measure the new site against them before launch, on a phone, on mobile data. Its mobile-first guidance is at Google Search Central.

Decide who maintains it. A redesign is a point in time; a website is ongoing. Updates, backups, monitoring and small edits either have an owner or they become the reason for the next redesign. Our care plans explained page covers what that should include.

Part 3: Launch day

1. Redirect every old address. Each old page gets a permanent (301) redirect to its closest new equivalent. No redirect to the homepage for everything; Google treats that as a soft 404. Google's site move guide is the reference.
2. Check name, phone, hours against your Google Business Profile, on every page and in the footer.
3. Submit the new sitemap in Search Console and watch the Pages report for a few weeks.
4. Fill in every form from your phone with a real email and number, and confirm the reply and the alert arrive.
5. Tap every phone number and email link on a phone.
6. Run the speed test again on the live site; staging numbers lie.
7. Keep the old site reachable for a week somewhere you can look at it, in case a page was missed.

What to hand whoever builds it

A redesign goes wrong in the handover more often than in the build. Whether it is us, another agency or your nephew, give them one document with the following, and ask them to confirm each item back to you before anything goes live.

• The list of every current page address, marked keep, merge or drop, with the new address for each.
• The Search Console exports from Part 1, so they know which pages carry the traffic.
• Your name, phone and hours exactly as Google shows them, and the Google Business Profile login if they are connecting it.
• Where each form must send, who gets the alert, and what the automatic reply should say.
• Your own photos, named by job and area, and your logo in a vector format.
• The speed numbers from the old site, and the agreement that the new one is measured on a phone before launch.
• Who owns the domain login, the hosting, the content and the code afterwards. With BuildSites the answer is you, in writing.

If a builder cannot tell you how they will handle the redirects, that is your answer about the builder.

The first month after

Expect some movement in rankings for two to four weeks while Google recrawls. What you are watching for is a page that lost its traffic and did not get it back: that is usually a missed redirect or a page whose content was cut. Search Console's Pages report shows "Not found" errors as they appear; fix each with a redirect the day you see it.

If the redesign means moving off a builder, Wix vs a custom website covers what changes. If you would rather hand the whole list to someone, this is what a BuildSites build is: the measurement, the rebuild on your domain, the redirects, the forms with automatic replies, and the maintenance after, for $297 USD a month plus taxes with no upfront build cost, live in 48 hours once we have your logo and services. Book a 20-minute call and bring your current site's address; we will run the audit while we talk.