Prepare your redesign brief, gather current content, confirm account ownership and make sure existing links and enquiries still work at launch.
Before paying for a website redesign, decide what the new site needs to make easier for customers and for your team. Gather the material people already rely on, confirm who controls the accounts, and test that enquiries still reach you when the new site goes live. You can prepare all three while you are still comparing proposals.
Start with what people struggle to do today
Ask the person who handles calls, bookings, or admissions to write down questions the current site leaves unanswered. Look at messages from the last few weeks and note the pages your team shares most often. A Kota training centre might find that parents call because they cannot find the next batch date on a phone. That gives you a concrete requirement. Staff should be able to change batch dates themselves, and a parent should be able to find the next batch and request a callback.
Pick two or three tasks the project should improve. Describe how you will check each on launch day. A task such as “find the Saturday batch and ask admissions about eligibility” is something a colleague can try without needing to know how the site is built.
Gather the material and assign owners
Collect the service descriptions, team details, contact information, FAQs, photos, logos, and policies you want to keep. Ask someone to review each item for accuracy and confirm that you can reuse the photographs and testimonials. Mark material that needs a rewrite or a new image so it can be included in the quote and launch schedule.
| What to gather | Who can confirm it | What to check before launch |
|---|---|---|
| Services, prices, and hours | Business owner or operations lead. | Current terms match what the team tells customers. |
| Photos, logos, and examples | Brand owner or the colleague who commissioned them. | You have the usable files and permission to publish. |
| Pages used in ads and referrals | The colleague who manages marketing. | Old links still reach the relevant service or offer. |
| Domain, hosting, and analytics | The person who handles business accounts. | The business can sign in, recover access, and add or remove agency access. |
| Enquiry forms and contact numbers | Sales, admissions, or front desk. | One test enquiry reaches the person responsible for replying. |
Keep control of the accounts you pay for
Find the login for the company that registered your domain, the hosting service, and any website or analytics accounts. Identify the business email that controls recovery and who can approve changes. If the old agency manages an account, ask what it will hand over, when, and in which format. Share access through individual invitations wherever available. Ask for a walkthrough that shows how to update a price, upload a photo, and see an enquiry.
Protect the links and enquiries you already receive
Give the agency a list of old pages customers still use, including links in ads, social profiles, QR codes, and sales messages. Keep a useful address when the same page will still exist. If a page moves, ask the agency to set up a redirect, which sends visitors using the old link to the most relevant new page. Have your team open a few old links from a phone before signing off. Google’s guide to moving existing website URLs.
If your service relies on an inbox, WhatsApp, or a booking tool, identify who handles it on launch day. A Kota coaching business might nominate one admissions counsellor to try the batch enquiry form, check that the course name comes through correctly, and confirm that the team can reply. For a shop, agree how to keep orders placed around launch and check that confirmations arrive.
Keep a copy of recent enquiries somewhere your team can access during the change. If an old form stores messages inside the website, agree on an export before the old account closes and confirm that the exported records include the contact details your team needs to follow up.
Agree on a launch day and a fallback
Pick a time when the people who run the site and receive enquiries are available. Ask your developer to keep a working copy of the previous site and explain how service would be restored if the new form or checkout fails. Agree who decides to switch back and how the team will keep enquiries or orders received during the switch. After launch, try the priority tasks again, watch for missed messages, and confirm that your team can make the updates covered in handover.
Use our guide to building a website that helps customers enquire to plan individual pages. You can also review our web development services and portfolio, or send us your redesign brief.