What to do after a website redesign: The next moves checklist

You’ve launched your new website and it looks brilliant. The design feels right, the layout works, and the team’s happy.

But going live is only the start. If you don’t check a few critical things in the first week or two, you might lose traffic, break user journeys, or see pages disappear from Google.

We’ve watched this happen more times than we’d like. A site goes live, everyone relaxes, and then a month later someone notices enquiries have vanished or half the blog posts are missing from search.

Most of these headaches are avoidable if you know what to test and where to look.

This checklist covers what you need to do straight after launch. Some tasks are quick, others need more ongoing monitoring, which is where a Growth Partner can help spot issues before you lose revenue.

Test the site across browsers

Different browsers can show your site in slightly different ways. What looks perfect in Chrome might break in Safari.

Testing across the main browsers catches visual bugs and layout problems before your visitors see them.

Check Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge

Start with the four major browsers: Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. These cover most web traffic.

Open your site in each one and click through every page type. Check the homepage, service pages, blog posts, contact forms, and any custom landing pages.

We usually test on both Mac and Windows. Safari on Mac and Edge on Windows can behave differently from their siblings.

Pay attention to interactive elements like dropdown menus, sliders, and forms. These break most often across browsers.

If you’re using custom fonts or animations, check those too. They can render inconsistently.

Mobile browsers matter just as much. Test on Safari for iOS and Chrome for Android at least.

Mobile Safari sometimes handles CSS differently from desktop browsers.

Spot misaligned or missing elements

Look for anything that’s out of place or missing. Buttons might shift, images might not load, or text could overlap.

Check your navigation menu closely. It might display right in Chrome but collapse in Firefox.

Forms can go wrong too. Input fields, checkboxes, and submit buttons sometimes end up misaligned or spaced oddly.

Compare what you see against your original designs. Take screenshots in each browser and lay them side by side.

You’ll spot subtle differences in fonts, colours, or element positions this way.

On a recent site rebuild, a custom date picker looked perfect in Chrome but broke in Safari. We caught it during cross-browser testing and fixed it before launch.

Confirm everything works as it should

A beautiful design means nothing if people can’t use your site. You need to test every interactive element, from navigation links to form submissions, to catch problems before users get frustrated.

Test navigation and internal links

Click every menu item and make sure each link goes to the right page. This includes your main navigation, footer links, and any sidebar menus.

Internal links within page content need the same attention. We’ve seen sites launch with dozens of broken links because URLs changed and nobody updated the old references.

Open key landing pages and click every link in the body.

Don’t forget mobile navigation. The hamburger menu that works on desktop might fail on a phone, or menu items might be cut off.

Test on a real phone, not just by resizing your browser.

If you use dropdown menus, hover over each one to check all options appear and can be clicked. Sometimes submenus hide behind other elements or can’t be selected.

Submit contact and signup forms

Fill out every form and submit it. Check you get the information in the right place, whether that’s your inbox, a CRM, or a spreadsheet.

Test with real data. Use a proper email, phone number, and a message that’s about the length a real visitor would use.

Some forms break with longer text or special characters.

Try submitting a form with missing required fields. Make sure error messages appear clearly and actually tell people what to fix.

Sign up for your newsletter or email list using a test address. Check you get the confirmation email and that any automated welcome emails trigger.

Check error pages for useful info

Type a random URL that doesn’t exist to see your 404 error page. This page should help lost visitors find what they need, with links to your homepage, main services, or a search.

We built a 404 page for a client that cut bounce rate just by adding their five most popular service links and a search bar.

A plain "Page not found" with no navigation sends people straight back to Google.

Test that your error page matches your new site. Many redesigns forget to update the 404 template, so visitors get a jarring experience.

Ensure accurate indexing and sitemaps

Search engines need a clear map of your site to index pages properly. A valid sitemap submitted through Google Search Console helps Google find and rank your new pages faster.

Generate and validate the sitemap

Your sitemap tells search engines which pages exist and how they relate. Most CMS platforms generate XML sitemaps, but a redesign can break that or create duplicates.

Check your sitemap URL, usually yoursite.com/sitemap.xml. Open it in a browser and make sure it loads and lists your current pages.

Remove any old URLs from pre-launch testing or staging.

Run the sitemap through an XML validator to catch formatting errors. We’ve seen sitemaps reference deleted pages or miss entire sections because someone forgot to update settings.

If you’re on WordPress, plugins like Yoast or Rank Math usually handle sitemaps, but double-check after going live.

Your sitemap should skip pages you’ve marked noindex, like thank-you pages or admin areas. Including them wastes crawl budget and confuses search engines.

Check submission with Google Search Console

Submit your sitemap through Google Search Console within a day of launch. Go to Sitemaps in the menu, enter your sitemap URL, and hit Submit.

Watch the Coverage report over the next week. Google shows how many pages it found, indexed, or excluded.

A spike in errors usually means redirect chains, broken links, or pages blocked by robots.txt.

On a recent rebuild, we caught a configuration error in two days because Search Console flagged 40 valid pages as noindex. Fixing it straight away stopped a traffic drop.

Check back weekly for the first month. Indexing takes time, especially for bigger sites, and early detection keeps problems from snowballing.

Fix redirects and prevent SEO drops

If you change URLs during a redesign, search engines lose track of your old pages unless you point them to the new ones. Most traffic drops we see after launches come from broken or missing redirects.

Set up 301 redirects for changed URLs

A 301 redirect tells Google a page has moved permanently. Every old URL that ranked or had backlinks needs a redirect to its new spot.

We map old URLs to new ones before launch using a spreadsheet. Export your old sitemap, list every URL that’s changing, then match each to its new home.

If a page has no exact match, send it to the most relevant category or parent page.

Set these redirects at server level, usually in your .htaccess file, nginx config, or hosting control panel.

Plugin-based redirects work for WordPress, but they’re slower and can break if the plugin fails.

We’ve seen clients lose thousands of visits because a plugin stopped working after a PHP update.

Test each redirect manually after launch. Open the old URLs and check they land on the right new pages with a 301 status code.

You can use browser developer tools or a redirect checker for this.

Monitor for crawl errors and index loss

Google Search Console shows crawl errors within days of launch. Check the Coverage report weekly for the first month for 404 errors or pages that dropped out of the index.

We caught a staging environment leak for a B2B client three days after their redesign went live. Google had indexed 200 test pages because the robots.txt file was overwritten during deployment.

Their organic traffic dropped until we fixed it.

Set up position tracking for your top 20 keywords before launch. If rankings drop suddenly, check if the pages still exist, if redirects are working, or if you’ve accidentally blocked them in robots.txt or added noindex tags.

Monitor traffic and engagement post-launch

Your analytics will show whether the redesign is working. Check for sudden drops in traffic, changes in bounce rates, and shifts in how people move through key pages.

Track analytics for sudden changes

Set up daily monitoring for the first two weeks after launch. Traffic can shift quickly when URLs change or Google reindexes your site.

We watch organic traffic first. A sudden drop often means missing redirects or lost rankings.

Check Google Search Console for indexing errors and crawl issues within 48 hours of launch.

Look at bounce rate and session duration across the site. A sharp rise in bounce rate can mean the new design confuses visitors or loads too slowly.

We’ve seen redesigns lose 30% of their conversions because page speed went from 2 seconds to 6.

Check conversion rates daily. Even small changes to forms or call-to-action buttons can affect whether people complete key actions.

If conversions drop by more than 10%, review the pages that drive the most leads or sales.

Watch for drop-offs or gains in key pages

Identify your five highest-traffic pages and monitor them separately. These pages matter more than sitewide averages.

Compare week-on-week performance for each page. Look at entrances, exits, time on page, and goal completions.

A page that used to convert at 8% might now convert at 3% because the form moved or the messaging changed.

We built a simple tracking sheet after launching Twinkl’s site rebuild. It showed traffic and conversions for their top landing pages, updated weekly.

When one page’s conversion rate dropped, we spotted it within five days and adjusted the layout.

Check mobile performance separately from desktop. Responsive designs sometimes work well on one device and poorly on another.

Filter your analytics by device to catch problems that only affect mobile users.

Raise and resolve issues quickly

Problems will crop up after launch, no matter how thorough your pre-launch testing was. The difference between a smooth transition and a chaotic one comes down to how fast you spot issues and how quickly you fix them.

Prioritise technical bugs

Start with anything that stops the site working. Broken contact forms or failing payment gateways need fixing straight away because they cost you enquiries and sales.

Check your analytics daily for the first two weeks. Watch for sudden drops in traffic to certain pages or weird spikes in bounce rate.

Keep an eye out for unusual exit patterns. We’ve seen clients lose thousands in revenue when a form stopped sending emails for just a few days.

Test your main user journeys every day during the first week. Submit enquiry forms, try out purchases if you run ecommerce, and click through your main navigation.

Browser-specific bugs slip through all the time, so check your site on Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge at the very least.

Keep Google Search Console open for crawl errors and indexing issues. If pages start dropping from the index or new errors pop up, sort them within 24 hours or you’ll risk losing search rankings.

Document and communicate problems

Keep a shared list of every issue you spot, even the little ones. We just use a spreadsheet with columns for the issue, which page it affects, how bad it is, when you found it, and the current status.

This way, problems don't slip past your team or the developer. It's a bit of admin, but it saves hassle later.

Screenshot every bug so someone else can see what went wrong. Add the browser version, device, and the exact steps you took.

If you just say "the menu looks wrong," that doesn't help much. But if you write "menu overlaps logo on iPhone 13, Safari 17," the developer can actually fix it.

Set response times that match how urgent the bug is. If it's critical, fix it the same day.

Major issues get sorted in 48 hours, minor stuff within a week. Make sure everyone knows the plan so there are no surprises and you keep things moving after launch.