Shop Relaunch Checklist: 50+ Points for a Successful Launch

A shop relaunch is a critical project. Done wrong, SEO rankings, customer data, and revenue can be lost. Done right, it offers the chance for a fresh start with better performance, UX, and conversion. This checklist guides you safely through the process.

Phase 1: Planning (8-12 Weeks Before Go-Live)

Strategic Decisions

☐Define relaunch goals (performance, UX, features, international...)
☐Platform decision: Stay, migrate, or rebuild?
☐Plan budget and timeline realistically
☐Define project team and responsibilities
☐Choose go-live date (not during peak season!)

Inventory

☐Capture all URLs of current shop (Screaming Frog crawl)
☐Identify top-performing pages (traffic, revenue, rankings)
☐Analyze backlink profile (which URLs have backlinks?)
☐Document current conversion data as baseline
☐Collect customer feedback and known pain points

Phase 2: Development (4-8 Weeks Before Go-Live)

SEO Migration

☐Create redirect mapping: Every old URL → new URL
☐Implement 301 redirects (not 302!)
☐Set canonical tags correctly on all pages
☐Hreflang tags for international shops
☐Prepare XML sitemap for new shop
☐Check robots.txt (no important pages blocked)
☐Meta tags (title, description) for all important pages

Critical: SEO Migration

SEO migration is the most common mistake in relaunches. A complete redirect mapping of ALL URLs is essential. Missing redirects = lost rankings.

Data Migration

☐Transfer product data completely (incl. variants, images, SEO data)
☐Migrate customer data (observe GDPR!)
☐Transfer order history
☐Set up categories and structure
☐Transfer content pages (CMS)

Functional Tests

☐Complete checkout process (all payment methods)
☐Test registration and login
☐Check cart functions
☐Test email notifications
☐Mobile responsiveness on various devices

Phase 3: Pre-Launch (1-2 Weeks Before Go-Live)

Technical Check

☐Measure and optimize Core Web Vitals
☐SSL certificate correctly configured
☐CDN set up
☐Caching configured
☐404 page set up
☐Backup strategy defined

Integrations & Tracking

☐Google Analytics 4 set up
☐Google Search Console prepared
☐E-commerce tracking configured
☐Facebook Pixel / Conversion API
☐Payment provider in live mode
☐Email marketing integration

Legal

☐Terms and conditions updated
☐Privacy policy adapted
☐Imprint complete
☐Cookie banner GDPR compliant
☐Cancellation policy current

Phase 4: Go-Live

Go-Live Checklist

☐Switch DNS
☐SSL active and functional
☐Redirects live and working
☐Submit new sitemap to Search Console
☐Place test order
☐Activate monitoring (uptime, errors)

Phase 5: Post-Launch (1-4 Weeks)

Monitoring

☐Check crawl errors in Search Console daily
☐Monitor ranking development
☐Compare conversion rate (before/after)
☐Identify and fix 404 errors
☐Collect and evaluate customer feedback

Shop Relaunch Planned?

We guide you through the entire relaunch process – from planning through SEO migration to post-go-live optimization.

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