A redesign is surgery on a living business: the site brings leads right now, and a careless intervention costs revenue. Seven mistakes we most often dissect in audits of other people's redesigns.
1. Redesign without a diagnosis
“The site looks dated” is not a task. A task sounds like: “landing conversion is 1.2% against a 2.5% target”. Without a diagnosis, a redesign changes colors, not outcomes. Week one of the project is analytics, session recordings, sales team interviews.
2. The big bang
Replacing the site overnight is roulette: if conversion drops, you cannot tell why. An iterative redesign — section by section, with A/B measurement — looks slower in a deck but protects revenue.
3. Lost SEO weight
Changing URL structure without a redirect map burns years of search equity in a week. Before the redesign: a full map of old URLs, 301 redirects, preserved metadata of performing pages, indexing control after launch.
4. Designing for the CEO
The site is approved by people who do not use it. Symptom: the homepage becomes a showcase of ambitions (“innovative solutions for market leaders”) while the visitor cannot find the price and the button. The cure is testing on the real audience before launch — methods described here.
5. Content at the last moment
Mockups with lorem ipsum look great until real texts arrive — twice as long and unstructured. Content strategy must precede design: first what we say, then how it looks.
6. Forgotten speed
A new design with video backgrounds easily weighs three times the old site. The performance budget is fixed before design — what that means in practice.
7. Launch as the finale
Conversion is made after launch: hypotheses, tests, iterations. Teams that disband at release leave half the effect on the table.
Planning a redesign? Start with a two-week audit: a diagnosis before surgery saves both nerves and revenue.