Knowledge · Website Redesign
Website Redesign Process: 14 Days, Discovery to Launch
Most agencies quote 8-14 weeks for a mid-market redesign. We ship in 14 days. The reason isn’t that we cut corners — it’s that we lock scope hard, run two sprints in parallel where most agencies run them sequentially, and refuse mid-project additions. Here’s the day-by-day.
№ 01Days 1-3: Discovery and information architecture
Day 1 is a 90-minute kickoff covering: existing-site audit (Lighthouse, CWV, plugin inventory, GA4 + GSC behavior), buyer interviews if available, and brand brief sign-off. Day 2 is the IA workshop — sitemap, page-by-page intent, conversion goals per page. Day 3 is scope lock: which pages move, which get new templates, which get killed.
End of Day 3, you sign the scope document. After that, additions are post-launch. This is the discipline that makes 14 days possible. Most agencies skip the lock and end up renegotiating scope every week.
№ 02Days 4-7: Design and 301 map (parallel)
While the design team is in Figma producing high-fidelity comps for the top 5-7 templates, the dev team is building the 301 map from the GSC + GA4 + Ahrefs exports. These run in parallel, not in sequence. Most agencies serialize them and lose 3-4 days.
Day 7 mid-sprint demo: you review the 5-7 templates in Figma. Two revision rounds available. Sign off by end of Day 7 or the timeline slips — non-negotiable. The 301 map is also reviewed at Day 7; you flag any high-value URL that’s missing or mis-mapped.
№ 03Days 8-12: Build sprint
Build sprint runs on staging. Custom block theme gets compiled, theme.json is finalized, every template gets implemented to match Figma, every page gets its new content slotted in, every 301 gets configured in the redirects table.
Day 11 mid-sprint demo: you walk the staging site end to end. This is the last revision opportunity before QA freeze. Visual tweaks, copy edits, CTA placement — all acceptable. New sections, new templates, new pages — not at this stage.
№ 04Days 13-14: QA and launch
Day 13 is the QA pass. Accessibility audit (WCAG 2.1 AA, the legal compliance bar), Lighthouse on the top 20 pages (target: 90+ Performance, 100 Accessibility, 100 Best Practices, 100 SEO), cross-browser smoke test (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge), mobile smoke test (iPhone Safari, Android Chrome). Every issue logged, every issue fixed by end of Day 13.
Day 14 morning: launch. DNS swap or hosting cutover, robots.txt verified, sitemap submitted, top 50 URLs requested for recrawl in GSC. Day 14 afternoon: live-traffic monitoring for the first 4 hours. Most issues that surface post-launch surface in the first 4 hours.
№ 05Why this timeline works when 8-week timelines don’t
The reason 8-week agency timelines exist isn’t that the work takes 8 weeks. It’s that the scope keeps changing. Every ‘one more page’ adds 3-5 days because it reopens design, copy, and QA. Compound that across 10 weekly check-ins and you have a 14-day project that took 14 weeks.
We solve this with one discipline: scope locks at Day 3. Period. The financial backing: if we miss the Day 14 launch, deposit refunded. We’ve missed once in 200+ builds. The discipline is real because the consequence is real.
⚠What to avoid
- Agreeing to ‘we’ll figure out the 301 map closer to launch.’ That’s a 3-spot ranking drop you didn’t need to take. Demand the map by end of Day 4.
- Skipping the Day 11 demo because you’re busy. Day 11 is the last revision window. Skip it and you’re live on Day 14 with whatever was built — no take-backs.
- Adding ‘just one more page’ after Day 3. It’s never one page. It cascades into design tweaks, copy reviews, QA additions, and a 3-day timeline slip. Defer to post-launch.
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