Website Redesign Business Case
This is a practical guide to building a business case for a website redesign project — the justification that weighs the costs, benefits and risks of doing the project, adapted to the realities of redesigning an existing website.
What a Business Case is
A business case is the justification that weighs the costs, benefits and risks of doing the project. For the full concept and how it works in general, see Business Case. On a website redesign project it plays the same role, tuned to this kind of work.
Why it matters for a Website Redesign project
Website Redesign projects live or die on redesigning an existing website. A well-built business case gives the team a shared, explicit reference for exactly that — reducing ambiguity, aligning stakeholders, and making problems visible early enough to act. Skipping it, or doing it generically, is how website redesign projects drift into avoidable delay and cost.
What to include
- Problem or opportunity
- Options considered
- Costs and benefits
- Financial appraisal (ROI/NPV/IRR)
- Recommendation
Website Redesign-specific considerations
Tailor the business case to the risks that most often derail website redesign projects:
- Scope creep
- Content migration
- SEO preservation
Example
On a real website redesign project, the business case would be shaped by redesigning an existing website. In particular, it should explicitly account for the project’s biggest risks — scope creep, content migration, SEO preservation — rather than treating them as afterthoughts.