8 Project Management Tips For Your Website Redesign

Managing a website redesign is no small task. Even an experienced digital project manager faces challenges in keeping these projects on time and on budget. Below, we share 8 practical project management tips from a seasoned digital project manager to help keep your website redesign on track and set your team up for success.

If you’re wondering whether it’s time for a redesign, explore the top reasons to consider a website redesign.

1

A Successful Website Redesign Starts with a Strong Project Team

Before beginning your website redesign, start by defining your project team. Whether your redesign is managed in-house or by an external agency, include key players like your marketing lead, designers, developers, content managers, and decision-makers from leadership to ensure your redesign aligns with your overall website launch strategy.

Your team should be a balanced mix of technical experts, creatives, and strategists. However, avoid overcrowding—too many voices can delay decisions. Each member should have clearly defined roles and responsibilities with effective communication being key to ensuring the digital project manager can keep the project running smoothly.

Leadership should also empower the project team to make decisions, particularly on smaller tasks, to keep the project moving forward. When working with an external agency, ensure that your partners are aligned with your organization’s core values, website goals, and—most importantly—your collaboration style. A collaborative, adaptive team is key to a smooth redesign process, allowing for efficient problem-solving as challenges emerge.

2

Define Clear, Measurable Goals for Your Website Launch

Once your team is in place, set clear, measurable goals for your website launch. Defining what success looks like allows you to plan backward and determine the necessary steps to achieve your objectives. Your goals should align with your marketing and business strategies and guide decisions throughout the redesign. For a deeper dive into aligning your redesign with business objectives, check out this B2B marketer’s guide to website redesign for maximum impact.

Whether you want to boost conversions, increase engagement, or support recruitment efforts, these goals should influence your website’s structure, content, and functionality, shaping a focused launch strategy. Setting specific, measurable objectives ensures that the digital project manager and project team can make decisions that support long-term business goals.

3

Establish a Realistic Website Redesign Timeline

To stay on schedule, break your project into manageable phases to create a clear roadmap that supports a well-executed website launch strategy.

Common stages include:

• Discovery: Analyze your current website, gather insights, and define goals.
• Design: Create wireframes and mockups, iterating until they meet your objectives.
• Development: Build the site, including coding, content migration, and custom features.
• Testing: Test the site for functionality, user experience, and cross-browser compatibility.

Set realistic deadlines for each phase and account for holidays or other potential delays. Build buffer time into the schedule for feedback and revisions to ensure quality work and eliminate racing against deadlines. For more insights on this topic, check out the importance of setting a realistic website redesign schedule.

Pro Digital Project Manager Tip: Use project management tools like Asana or Trello to organize tasks and ensure your website launch strategy stays on track.

4

Create a Detailed Budget Plan

A well-planned budget is essential to keeping your redesign on track. Include anticipated costs for design, development, content creation, testing, hosting, and ongoing maintenance. Don’t forget to account for project management, whether handled internally or outsourced.

A digital project manager should regularly track expenses against your budget, and if one area begins to overrun, adjust other areas accordingly to maintain balance. Proactive budget management is one of the essential project management tips that helps prevent financial strain and ensures the project stays within scope. By closely monitoring your finances, you can address potential issues early and keep the website launch on track.

Pro Digital Project Manager Tip: When selecting a web hosting provider or website development partner, remember that a new website is an investment. It’s important not to sacrifice ease of use and performance for lower costs—after all, you get what you pay for. Prioritize hosting solutions that are reliable, secure, and scalable to meet your long-term needs.

5

Maintain Open and Frequent Communication with Your Project Team

Clear, consistent communication is key to any project’s success. Regular check-ins help track progress and prevent issues from derailing the project. Keeping stakeholders informed of milestone completions and potential roadblocks ensures that they remain aligned and engaged, enabling proactive support to resolve issues before they escalate. An open environment where everyone feels comfortable raising concerns fosters transparency and collaboration.

6

Stick to a Defined Scope

Scope creep is one of the most common challenges in a website redesign. It happens when a project extends beyond its original deliverables and budget. To avoid this, define the project’s scope from the start and document all change requests, assessing the impact of each change on the budget and timeline.

While scope creep can lead to difficult conversations, proper documentation helps manage these discussions. Additional work is not necessarily bad, but it’s important to communicate clearly about how it will affect the project’s bottom line.

Pro Digital Project Manager Tip: Implement a change order process to assess change requests. A change order formally documents modifications to the project scope, timeline, or budget, ensuring alignment with stakeholders.

7

Test your Website Redesign Early and Often

Thorough testing is essential for delivering a polished, successful website launch. Testing should begin even before development, ensuring the design functions as intended. Regular testing during and after content migration prevents costly post-launch troubleshooting.

Key areas to test include:

1. ADA Compliance: Ensure your site meets accessibility standards of your choosing.
2. Usability Testing: Engage real users to test site functionality and identify issues.
3. Content Review: Ensure content is correctly placed and relevant to each page.
4. Responsiveness Testing: Check the site’s performance across various browsers and devices.

8

Have a Post Website Launch Strategy

After launch, monitor the site to catch any bugs or performance issues that arise in real-world use. A proactive post website launch plan prevents minor problems from becoming major disruptions.

A website is an evolving tool that requires regular maintenance and updates. Budget for ongoing work like security patches, new features, and content updates. Additionally, gather feedback from users and stakeholders to inform future improvements.

Pro Digital Project Manager Tip: Schedule a post website launch review with your team to assess the project’s success and identify areas for optimization.

Achieving Success with an Effectively Managed Website Redesign

Successfully managing a website redesign requires careful planning, clear communication, and a strong project team. By setting measurable goals, sticking to a defined scope, and building in time for testing and maintenance, you can keep your website launch on-time and on-budget. With these project management tips, you’re well on your way to delivering a website that not only looks great but also supports your business objectives for years to come.