MIG Innovations 
A redesign is a significant investment, and the costliest mistake is rebuilding the same problems with a fresh look. Before you start, work through this checklist so the new site actually fixes what the old one got wrong—and does not throw away the search visibility you have already earned.
First: Why are you redesigning?
Be specific. "It looks dated" is a real reason but an incomplete one. The problems worth naming:
- It does not generate leads, or the conversion rate is poor.
- It is hard to update—you call a developer to change a sentence.
- It is slow, especially on phones.
- It does not show up in search.
- It no longer reflects what the business actually does.
- It is not mobile-friendly.
Write the real problems down. They become the checklist you measure the new site against.
Before you touch design: capture what already works
- Which pages get traffic—check your analytics
- Which pages and search terms bring in visitors from Google
- Every current URL that ranks or has links pointing to it—each one needs a plan to keep it or redirect it
- Existing content that is worth keeping
Skipping this step is how businesses lose their Google rankings overnight during a redesign.
The content checklist
- One clear purpose per page
- A headline that says what you do and who you do it for
- Every service on its own page—better for search and clearer for visitors
- Your location is named naturally if you serve a specific area—for us that is Denver and the Front Range
- Real photos instead of stock wherever you can
- A clear next step on every page
The technical checklist
- Fast on mobile, where most of your visitors are
- You can edit text and images yourself without a developer.
- Proper page titles and meta descriptions on every page
- Structured data describing your business
- A 301 redirect from every old URL to its new home
- An XML sitemap, submitted to Google Search Console
- Analytics and conversion tracking were working before launch, not after.
The launch checklist
- Crawl the old site and list every URL.
- Map each old URL to a new one or a redirect.
- Test every form and every phone and email link.
- Check the site on real phones, not just a narrow browser window.
- Submit the new sitemap and watch Search Console for errors for two weeks.
- Keep comparing traffic and leads against the old site.
Do not redesign in a vacuum
A new site does not bring in traffic on its own—ongoing marketing and local SEO do that. Budget for both, or the new site will be just as quiet as the old one.
How we handle redesigns at MIG Innovations
We are a Lakewood web design and development team, and we start by auditing what you already have so the rebuild protects your rankings instead of resetting them. You get a fixed scope and a written quote before anything starts. Send us your current site and we will tell you what to keep, what to fix, and what to rebuild.