Most relaunches start with the design, because that is what everyone sees. The work that decides whether the switch goes smoothly is less visible: which content moves, which addresses change, who holds the domain and the accounts, and what happens on the day the new site goes live. Work through this checklist before you ask for offers; it makes the offers more precise and the project calmer.
1. Take stock of your content
Start with a list of every page on the current site. For each page, note whether it is kept, rewritten, merged or removed. Pay particular attention to:
- pages that bring in enquiries or that other websites link to;
- documents such as PDFs, price lists or forms that are linked from elsewhere;
- photos and images, and whether you may keep using them on the new site;
- legal pages such as the imprint and the privacy policy, which someone responsible has to review for the new site;
- content that is out of date and can simply go.
Then agree who writes or updates the texts, and by when. A launch date only holds if the content is ready for it.
2. Keep your addresses, or redirect them
Search engines, bookmarks, emails and printed material all point to the addresses (URLs) of your current pages. If a page moves to a new address without a redirect, those links end on an error page.
- Keep the address of a page wherever its content stays the same.
- Where an address has to change, set up a permanent redirect (HTTP 301) from the old address to the new one.
- Redirect removed pages to the closest matching page, not all of them to the home page.
- After the switch, test the old addresses, starting with the pages that matter most to you.
The list from step 1 becomes your redirect plan: one line per old address, with its new destination.
3. Clarify who owns the domain and the accounts
Before anything changes, make sure your company has access to everything the website depends on. Ideally, each of these is registered in the company’s name, with at least two people who can log in:
- the domain registration and its DNS settings;
- the hosting and any content management system;
- email services that use the same domain;
- analytics and search engine tools;
- third-party services such as booking, newsletter or map tools.
Take care with DNS changes: your email often runs on the same domain, and a careless change can interrupt it. Plan the switch for a time when someone can check that both email and the website work.
4. Decide on languages
If your customers speak more than one language, decide early:
- which languages the new site offers, and whether every page exists in each of them;
- how the address shows the language, for example with /de/ or /fr/ in front of the page;
- who writes and checks each language version, and how later changes reach all of them.
Each additional language adds work to the build and to every later update, so it is worth planning from the start rather than adding at the end.
5. Plan measurement
A relaunch is a good moment to review what you measure and why. Decide which analytics or marketing tools the new site uses, and keep only those whose figures someone actually looks at. If you want to compare before and after, note the current figures before the switch.
Data protection matters here. Clarify what applies to your site with whoever advises your company on data protection, and make sure the written offer names the tools and states where their data is processed.
6. Plan the launch and the handover
Agree on a launch date and a short plan for the day itself: who switches the domain, who tests the forms and the email, and who can be reached if something does not work. Keep the old site available, but not public, until the new one runs as it should.
Then comes the handover. At the end of the project you should receive:
- the source code of the new site;
- access to the hosting, the domain settings and all connected services;
- documentation on how the site is operated, updated and backed up;
- a list of the recurring costs and who pays them.
With these in hand, your company stays independent: another developer could take over later without starting from zero.
Where MomentumQ fits
A company website at MomentumQ starts from CHF 4'000 and includes design and development, layouts for phone and desktop, publication, the source code and a handover. A simple website usually takes one to two weeks; a relaunch with a lot of content, several languages or many redirects is scoped individually.
The process is the same in each case: a free 30-minute first conversation, a written offer with scope, timeline and price, the build with regular reviews, then the launch and the handover of code, access and documentation.