Before design: establish the baseline

  • List every current public URL and identify pages receiving traffic, links, calls, or sales.
  • Record current titles, descriptions, headings, forms, phone actions, integrations, and structured data.
  • Save current analytics and Search Console benchmarks when the business owns authorized access.
  • Identify the domain registrar, DNS provider, hosting account, CMS, email provider, and administrators.
  • Back up the site and database before production changes.

A visual screenshot is not a migration plan. The inventory protects pages and functions that are easy to overlook during a design-focused project.

Define the business job

Choose one primary outcome and a small set of supporting outcomes. Examples include qualified calls, estimate requests, appointment bookings, store purchases, recruiting applications, or better prequalification. “Make it modern” is a design preference, not a measurement plan.

Decide what stays, changes, and disappears

Label every page: keep, improve, consolidate, redirect, or retire. Preserve content that answers customer questions or attracts qualified search traffic. Consolidate overlap carefully. When a URL changes, map the old URL to the most relevant replacement instead of redirecting everything to the homepage.

Verify every business fact

Confirm the business name, public phone, address or service area, hours, services, qualifications, team details, and policies. Do not copy outdated information from an old footer into a new site. Compare important facts with the Google Business Profile and authoritative company records.

Design the customer paths

  • Make the primary action visible without scrolling on common screens.
  • Keep forms as short as the sales process allows.
  • Explain what happens after submission.
  • Provide alternatives for customers who cannot or do not want to use the primary path.
  • Test calls, forms, bookings, payments, confirmation screens, notifications, and mobile keyboards.

Protect the launch

Use a staged review, an approved launch window, a rollback path, and a written checklist. Verify HTTPS, canonical URLs, robots directives, sitemap, redirects, analytics, error pages, metadata, social previews, structured data, and key customer actions after deployment. A successful upload is not proof of a successful launch.

Measure after launch

Annotate the launch date. Compare qualified actions, not vanity traffic alone. Watch Search Console coverage, important rankings, calls, form quality, and conversion rate. Correct technical regressions quickly, but give search engines and customers enough time to produce meaningful evidence before redesigning again.

Minimum safe handoff: the business should know where the domain, DNS, hosting, CMS, analytics, Search Console, forms, media, backups, and source files live—and who can access them.

Use the related website ownership checklist before signing a new agreement, and review Hattiesburg website cost factors before comparing proposals.