As a website-first agency for high-growth B2B companies, we’ve seen it all when it comes to website projects. And let’s be honest—we know exactly what’s running through your head when it’s time for a major site update.
Anxiety? Confusion? Maybe even a little chaos? Yep, we get it.
That’s why we’re here—to bring structure to the madness. With the right plan in place, you can take on your next website project without the guesswork, headaches, or last-minute fire drills.
Whether you're a fast-scaling startup or a complex enterprise, this guide will teach you how to successfully plan, execute, and launch a high-performance website that’s on time and within budget.
Let’s get started 🚀
What is Website Project Planning?
Website project planning is the structured process of defining, organizing, and executing a website initiative—whether it’s a redesign, migration, or some other significant update.
It involves setting clear objectives, aligning stakeholders, choosing the right technology, and ensuring seamless execution to deliver a site that meets business goals.
Unlike a simple website update, a full-scale website project requires:
- Strategic alignment between marketing, sales, product, and leadership teams.
- Comprehensive planning to avoid common pitfalls like scope creep, missed deadlines, and budget overruns.
- A data-driven approach to ensure SEO performance, conversion rates, and user experience are optimized from day one.
Why Effective Planning is Critical for B2B Marketing Teams
Like any major initiative, the more you define upfront, the smoother the process will be before launch, at launch, and beyond.
Without a solid plan, a website project can feel like a chaotic race to an arbitrary deadline—something everyone just wants to check off and move on from. But when done right, it’s exactly what it should be — an exciting growth opportunity.
With the right structure, your team stays focused, collaboration is smoother, and the result is a high-performing website that drives pipeline, strengthens your brand, and scales your marketing efforts.
Types of Website Projects
At Webstacks, we typically categorize website projects into two primary initiatives: website redesigns and website migrations. While other large-scale projects exist (and we’ll explain shortly), these two are by far the most complex and high-impact, requiring strategic planning and lots of cross-functional collaboration.
Let’s break down what each involves—and what it takes to execute them successfully.
Website Redesigns
A website redesign is a comprehensive overhaul of your site, involving major updates to design systems, components, site structure, and conversion strategy. It’s a strategic initiative aimed at improving user experience, performance, and overall business impact.
Additionally, we have website refreshes (or reskins). These are lighter, more frequent updates. They typically include branding adjustments, minor UX improvements, and visual refinements rather than a full structural revamp. While smaller in scale, a refresh still requires careful research and planning to get the most out of your efforts.
🚨 Signs It’s Time for a Website Redesign
- Declining performance: Conversion rates and engagement metrics steadily drop over time.
- Outdated design: The website no longer reflects the brand’s identity or positioning.
- Poor user experience: Slow load times and lack of mobile responsiveness impact performance.
- CMS limitations: A hard-to-manage CMS hinders marketing agility and creativity.
❌ Common Pitfalls in Website Redesign Projects
- Scope creep: All of a sudden, there are more components and pages that weren't previously accounted for.
- Stakeholder alignment: Feedback from executives, sales, and product teams comes flying in left and right – after things are finalized.
- Balancing brand, UX, and conversions: What some think looks best may not actually serve business goals.
- Staying on schedule: Collaboration between marketers, designers, and developers can get complicated quickly, fueling lengthy delays.
✅ Best Practices for a Successful Redesign
- Conduct a website audit before making any changes
- Align redesign goals with business objectives (not just aesthetics)
- Prototype and conduct user testing before full implementation
- Adopt a modular design approach to ensure website scalability
Website Migrations
A website migration is a significant technical shift that involves moving your site to a new platform, domain, or architecture. Unlike a redesign, which focuses on visual and user experience improvements, a migration is often driven by technical, structural, or strategic needs like switching to a headless CMS, rebranding, or consolidating multiple websites.
Because migrations involve backend infrastructure, SEO, and content restructuring, they require careful planning and execution to avoid traffic loss, broken links, and performance issues. When done correctly, a migration can enhance site speed, scalability, and search visibility, setting your website up for long-term success.
🚨 Signs It’s Time for a Website Migration
- Tech limitations: Your current CMS or tech stack is holding you back, making even small updates a headache.
- Rebrand or restructure: Your company is evolving, and your site needs to follow suit—whether that means a domain change, a new brand identity, or an entirely fresh site architecture.
- Mergers & acquisitions: Multiple websites now fall under one brand, and keeping them separate is confusing your audience (and your internal teams).
- SEO challenges: Traffic has plateaued (or worse, dropped), and technical SEO issues are piling up. It’s time for a hard reset.
❌ Common Pitfalls in Website Migration Projects
- Project mismanagement: Teams don’t strategically plan the new site structure and 301 redirects, leading to an SEO nightmare.
- Poor CMS selection: All this excitement to create a better website halts when you realize that your new home isn’t all you had hoped for.
- Broken links & tracking issues: Internal links lead to dead ends, tracking breaks, and suddenly, analytics don’t tell the full story anymore.
- Performance setbacks: You move to a shiny new site but forget to optimize speed, mobile experience, or overall site health—resulting in a downgrade instead of an upgrade.
✅ Best Practices for a Website Migration
- Map all existing URLs and plan 301 redirects
- Identify a new CMS that has the functionality and scalability you need.
- Run a technical SEO audit pre- and post-migration
- Monitor analytics closely post-migration for early issue detection
Other Large-Scale Website Projects B2B Companies May Encounter
👤 Personalization & Dynamic Content: Enhancing user experience with tailored messaging, AI-driven recommendations, and adaptive content that responds to visitor behavior.
🌎 Localization & Multi-Site Expansions: Expanding your website to support multiple languages, currencies, and regional SEO strategies while maintaining brand consistency.
🛠️ Tech Stack Enhancements: Upgrading or adding new marketing tools such as automation software and analytics platforms to optimize performance and streamline workflows.
🔌 Systems Integrations: Ensuring seamless data flow between your CMS, CRM, ERP, and other core platforms, enabling better reporting, automation, and cross-team collaboration.
Website Strategy & Planning
Website projects can go off the rails before they even begin. Not because of poor execution, but because the strategy wasn’t set in stone upfront. When goals are vague, stakeholders aren’t aligned, and KPIs don’t exist beyond “make it look better,” the result is a site that might be new but doesn’t actually move the needle.
Website planning is about making intentional decisions before the first line of code is written. It’s knowing exactly who the site is for, what actions you want visitors to take, and how it supports the broader marketing and revenue strategy. It also means tackling questions that teams often ignore until it's too late:
Think about:
- How will this website generate pipeline?
- What KPIs actually define success beyond traffic numbers?
- How will teams keep the site scalable after launch?
Defining Website Project Goals & KPIs
Start with Business Objectives
Before defining website-specific KPIs, align with broader business goals:
- ✅ Increase lead generation → Improve conversion rates and optimize CTAs.
- ✅ Expand into new markets → Implement localization and multi-site functionality.
- ✅ Shorten the sales cycle → Provide self-serve content, interactive demos, and clear value propositions.
- ✅ Strengthen brand positioning → Ensure messaging, design, and UX reflect your company’s evolution.
Key Website KPIs to Track
Once objectives are set, define the key metrics that will measure success.
📈 Example: Redesign Key Metrics
- Traffic & Engagement: Organic sessions, bounce rate, average time on page
- Lead Generation: Form submissions, demo requests, trial sign-ups
- Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO): Click-through rates, conversion rates by page, A/B test results
- SEO Performance: Keyword rankings, backlinks, domain authority
📈 Example: Migration Key Metrics
- Technical Performance: Page speed, Core Web Vitals, mobile responsiveness, uptime stability
- SEO & Traffic Retention: Organic traffic, keyword rankings, indexed pages, backlink retention
- CMS & Workflow Efficiency: Time to publish content, marketing team adoption, ease of integrations
- Redirect & Link Integrity: % of properly redirected URLs, number of broken links, internal linking structure health
Tip: Avoid Vanity Metrics
Not all metrics provide real value. While page views and social shares look good on paper, they don’t always translate to pipeline and revenue. Focus on KPIs that tie directly to business impact and user behavior.
Stakeholder Involvement & Communication Strategies
One of the biggest challenges in a website project plan isn’t the design or development—it’s managing all the stakeholders involved. Senior leadership, marketing, design, and development teams all have a stake in the outcome.
But without clear ownership and communication, misalignment and last-minute changes can derail progress. To keep things on track, your project needs a structured approach to decision-making, feedback, and accountability.
After working on hundreds of website projects, here’s what we’ve learned about keeping teams aligned from start to finish.
#1. Too many stakeholders = chaos.
When everyone from sales to the CEO has an opinion, feedback spirals out of control. Not every voice should carry equal weight—establish decision-makers early.
#2. Lack of clear ownership kills momentum.
If marketing owns the vision, but leadership wants veto power, and IT dictates platform choices, expect misalignment. Define who has final say from day one.
#3. The website isn’t just marketing’s problem—it’s a business-wide asset.
Many stakeholders see the website as “just a marketing thing” until it directly impacts sales enablement, product adoption, or customer experience. Loop in sales, product, and customer teams early so the site actually serves business goals.
#4. No one likes last-minute feedback bombs.
Leadership disappearing during the planning phase only to drop a list of "must-haves" a week before launch is a recipe for disaster. Set review checkpoints so feedback is structured, timely, and actionable.
#5. The best website projects function like a product team.
The "set it and forget it" approach doesn’t work. A high-performing website needs continuous iteration, meaning marketing, sales, product, and dev should stay aligned even post-launch.
Choosing the Right Tech Stack & CMS
A critical component of web project planning is selecting the tools you’re going to build with. Here are the keys to getting it right the first time:
Tech Decisions Should Happen Early in the Planning Process
- Choosing a CMS and tech stack after design and content strategy is a mistake. Start this process as early as possible (after you’ve outlined your goals and budget).
- Marketing teams need to be involved in tech discussions to ensure the system supports their needs, not just developer preferences.
Adopt a “Composable” Approach
- Modern websites demand modern strategies. We encourage B2B companies to embrace a fully composable website with respect to design and development.
- Choose modular design practices and web tools that integrate seamlessly, embracing a website that’s flexible, scalable, and built to evolve with the business.
Build for Today, but Plan for Tomorrow
- The best website project plan accounts for the long term. A tech stack that meets today’s needs but isn’t scalable can lead to expensive migrations later.
- Look beyond immediate needs and consider features your organization would likely benefit from down the road.
We've got a few hot takes about website tech stacks...
🔥 "Your CMS should empower marketing, not create bottlenecks." Too many teams choose a CMS that requires constant dev support, slowing down campaigns.
🔥 "A website redesign is the best time to future-proof your tech stack." Make sure your CMS, integrations, and infrastructure can scale as your business grows.
🔥 "Headless CMS isn’t for everyone, but for fast-growing B2B companies, it can be a game-changer." It’s more complex but offers flexibility, security, and seamless integrations with modern marketing stacks.
Budgeting for Website Projects
There’s no “one-size-fits-all” budget for a website project. Our team has worked on websites with budgets from $50k to upwards of $1 million. No matter you're budget, here’s one thing we know for sure: cutting corners undoubtedly leads to headaches. And overpaying without a clear strategy gets you nowhere.
Somewhere, there’s a magic number that aligns with both the business’s finances and the amount needed to get your site where it needs to be.
So. how do you allocate a budget that’s reasonable and moves the needle?
Knowing what factors impact cost and how to justify the investment makes all the difference.
There’s no magic formula for budgeting a website project, but there are plenty of ways to get it
- Underestimate, and you’ll be fighting for resources mid-project.
- Overestimate without clear reasoning, and leadership will cut it down.
Here’s how to build a realistic budget and secure buy-in from decision-makers.
How to Estimate a Budget
Most website managers start with a number and then try to fit the website project into it. But that’s backward. Instead, define the project scope first, then assign costs based on actual needs.
Here’s how to build a scope-first budget that won’t fall apart mid-project:
- Outline the Core Scope → Is this a full redesign, migration, or refresh? The scale of the project directly impacts cost.
- Finalize Resourcing → Decide whether you’ll keep this project in-house, outsource to an agency, or do a combination of both (more on this later).
- Break Down Cost Areas → Design, development, CMS, SEO, integrations, and ongoing maintenance—each needs a defined budget.
- Factor in Content & SEO → Ignoring content migration, redirects, and optimization can wreck search rankings and traffic post-launch.
- Account for Hidden Costs → Performance tuning, compliance (ADA, security), and post-launch testing often get overlooked.
- Add a Contingency Buffer → Expect unexpected changes. A 10-20% buffer keeps the project moving without last-minute budget panic.
How to Justify Your Budget
Once you have a realistic estimate, the next challenge is securing the budget. Leadership doesn’t care about line items—they care about ROI and impact.
Here’s how to position your budget as a growth investment, not an expense:
- Tie It to Revenue → Show how the site will increase pipeline, boost conversion rates, and improve sales efficiency.
- Use Data to Make Your Case → Slow load times? Poor UX? Quantify how the current site is costing the company leads and revenue.
- Compare Fixing vs. Rebuilding → If the dev team is constantly patching an outdated system, a new build might save money long-term.
- Show Industry Benchmarks → If competitors are investing in better UX, personalization, and performance, staying stagnant is a risk.
- Highlight the Cost of Doing Nothing → Traffic declines, lead drop-offs, and rising acquisition costs are all consequences of an underperforming website.
Website Project Management
Missed deadlines, technical issues, and last-minute pivots—every website project hits roadblocks. But the best teams anticipate challenges and minimize risks by following a structured approach that keeps everything on track from kickoff to launch.
How to Keep Your Website Project on Track
#1 Define Ownership Early
- A website project has a lot of moving parts and competing priorities. Without clear ownership, it’s easy for things to slip through the cracks.
- 🔑 Best Practice: Assign clear roles and responsibilities (Marketing, Design, Dev, SEO, Content, QA). Decide who has final approval to avoid last-minute overruling.
#2. Lock in Scope Before You Start
Scope creep is the #1 reason website projects run over time and budget. If new requests keep piling up, launch dates will keep slipping.
- 🔑 Best Practice: Set a project scope document upfront and define a change request process so stakeholders understand the impact of adding new features mid-project.
#3. Create a Transparent Timeline with Realistic Milestones
A website project isn’t just one big deadline—it’s a series of milestones across strategy, design, development, testing, and launch.
- 🔑 Best Practice: Use a project timeline with clear phases and deadlines so teams know what’s coming next. Avoid setting unrealistic launch expectations that create unnecessary pressure.
#4. Balance Meetings with Asynchronous Updates
Too few meetings? Teams go dark, and misalignment creeps in. Too many? Productivity takes a hit.
- 🔑 Best Practice: Daily stand-ups for active teams, weekly check-ins for stakeholders. Use tools like Loom, Slack, or project dashboards for quick async updates instead of unnecessary meetings.
#5. Implement a Concrete QA & Pre-Launch Process
Rushing a launch without thorough QA leads to broken pages, poor user experience, and costly fixes after go-live.
- 🔑 Best Practice: Have a structured QA checklist covering performance, responsiveness, SEO, and accessibility. Involve both internal teams and real users for testing before launch.
The Website Project Management Toolkit
A website project has too many moving parts to rely on scattered emails and endless meetings. The best teams use purpose-built tools to keep tasks organized, feedback streamlined, and deadlines on track—without slowing the project down.
Here’s the tech stack Webstacks utilizes to keep our clients’ projects running smoothly:
📋 Project Management & Task Tracking: Jira
💬 Team Communication & Collaboration: Slack, Zoom, Loom, FigJam
🎨 Design & Prototyping: Figma, Slickplan
💻 Development & Code Repositories: GitHub
🔎 QA & Bug Tracking: BugHerd
📊 Analytics & Performance Monitoring: Google Analytics
🔍 SEO & Content: Ahrefs, Screaming Frog, Google Search Console
Working with External Teams on Website Projects
Not all website projects require an agency, and not all teams can handle everything in-house. The right approach depends on budget, timeline, expertise, and long-term needs.
Let’s break down the three models:
- 💼 In-House: Best for companies with an established web team that can handle ongoing updates and iterative improvements but may struggle with large-scale projects or specialized expertise.
- 🛠️ Agency: Ideal when teams need high-level strategy, custom development, or an intensive redesign but requires a higher upfront investment and clear expectations on collaboration.
- 🔄 Hybrid: A strong option when teams need external expertise but want to retain control over content updates, marketing operations, or ongoing site management.
3 Common misconceptions or challenges
- ❌ An agency will handle everything for you.
- Even with the best agency, you’ll still need an internal project owner to manage feedback, approvals, and alignment across teams.
- ❌ In-house is always the cheaper option.
- Without the right expertise, projects can drag on, requiring costly fixes or outside help later.
- ❌ Hybrid models provide seamless collaboration.
- Without a well-defined split in responsibilities, teams risk duplicate efforts, miscommunication, or execution gaps.
Which is most effective for your website project?
The right approach depends on your team’s expertise, project complexity, and how much control you want over execution.
✅ In-house teams work best for continuous updates and marketing-driven site changes but may struggle with large-scale redesigns or technical migrations.
✅ Agencies bring specialized expertise and faster execution for complex builds, but they require strong internal alignment to stay on track.
✅ Hybrid models offer flexibility—internal teams handle day-to-day updates, while agencies tackle high-impact development and strategy.
Build Smarter, Launch Faster—Start Planning Today
From our experience working with high-growth B2B companies, the most successful website projects don’t happen by accident—they’re built on clear goals, strong collaboration, and a well-defined execution plan.
We’ve seen firsthand how the right budgeting, tech stack, and stakeholder alignment can mean the difference between a smooth launch and months of delays. Whether you’re managing everything in-house, partnering with an agency, or taking a hybrid approach, the key is planning ahead and staying adaptable.
Now, it’s time to get started and build a website that drives real business impact. 🚀
