Website relaunch. Before the new one gets built.
Your website is to be rebuilt. The more important question is what has to change.
Before the relaunch, I examine what carries today, what may go, and which decisions come first. That becomes the brief your agency builds from.
ON THE TABLE
A new website, a new shop or a new system.
THE DECISION BEFORE
What must demonstrably work better afterwards than today?
WHAT IT COSTS TO LEAVE IT OPEN
Everything gets rebuilt, including what brings in enquiries and rankings today.
“It just looks old.”
Old is not a finding. Some things look old and carry. Others look new and cost money every day.
“New CMS, new design, new copy.”
None of it solves a problem nobody named beforehand.
“They want us to tell them what we want.”
Then now is the moment. Before assumptions turn into page structures, templates and budgets.
A relaunch is not a design task. It is a series of decisions that get expensive later.
How I read a website before a relaunch.
I read five zones, and each ends in a question that has to be answered before the first draft.
Inventory. What works today and must not be lost?
Demand. Which pages, topics and entry points bring people, and which only visitors?
Offer. What needs to be clearer, narrower or led differently?
Path. How do people get from entry to enquiry or purchase today, and where don’t they?
Technology. Which decisions on URLs, redirects, tracking, SEO and CMS are being made now, even if nobody sees them?
Three words.
Every page, every entry point, every path gets one of three words.
Keep. Carries today and is protected.
Change. Holds things back today and is reset.
Unsettled. Is not built until the decision stands.
The list is the brief. It tells the agency what to build and, above all, what not to touch.
What a relaunch takes with it.
Rankings. Entry pages. Customer paths. Tracking. Links. Content that sells today.
A relaunch can be technically clean and commercially worse.
From the first conversation to go-live.
The fit call. Twenty minutes. You tell me what’s planned and why. Afterwards we know whether a consultation is enough or whether the inventory needs reading in full before the relaunch.
The Consultation. One conversation about your website and your numbers, then I work it through. At the end the Decision Letter: what stays, what changes, what has to be decided before the relaunch.
The Relaunch Report. Inventory, demand, offer, path and technology read in full, every page with one of the three words. Afterwards: the Report, handed over bound. It is the brief for your agency.
The Report says whether it stays at that. One thing can follow. It doesn’t have to.
The Delivery Review. Once the agency has built: before go-live, I check whether what was decided got built. Redirects, tracking, entry points, paths. Before the old website is switched off.
What I don’t do.
I don’t build websites. I make sure that before the build it is settled what gets built. Your agency, your designer, your developer work to it, and better, because they know what for.
Three cases.
The website is moving, and everyone expects a loss.
Case 05 · No loss, rankings up
Came with: “We’re changing domain and will lose visibility. The question is how much.”
Underneath: The site’s structure had never been settled. A move would have carried it over.
Decision: Structure settled before the move. Only what carries was moved.
Effect: No loss. Rankings up.
One piece of content that has been selling for years, and nobody knows it.
Case 10 · Number one for five years, at no running cost
Came with: “We need to get ahead on Google, and it costs us every month.”
Underneath: Visibility was being bought because nobody had decided what the business should be found for.
Decision: One search term. One piece of content, built right.
Effect: Number one for the most important search term, for five years, without re-optimisation. Exactly this kind of content is the first thing an unexamined relaunch loses.
The business runs well. Only nobody knows any more where the customers come from.
Case 07 · 35% more revenue, same team
Came with: “It’s running. But we no longer know where the customers actually come from.”
Underneath: A separate path through website and sales for every target group and every offer. None with the full weight.
Decision: Two paths. The entire budget behind them.
Effect: 35% more revenue, same team.
“Relevant keywords. Much better rankings. Visitors tripled.”CMO, retail
Before the new website exists, it is settled what the old one already does. And what the new one has to do better.
Twenty minutes. Afterwards you know whether a consultation is enough.