How to Manage a Website Rewrite

A successful website rewrite is not just about launching a beautiful new design.

It is an opportunity to refresh your messaging, align your team, enhance your brand voice, improve SEO and AI visibility, and better communicate who you are to your target audiences.

While organizations often spend months discussing design direction, navigation, and functionality, the real momentum of a website project usually comes down to the content process itself:

• How information is gathered

• Who contributes

• How messaging is organized

• How feedback is managed

• And ultimately, who shapes the final story

The organizations that navigate website rewrites most effectively are the ones with a clear process for collecting and refining content. Not necessarily the ones with the largest marketing departments.

Start With Conversations, Not Content Requests

One of the biggest mistakes organizations make is emailing colleagues and asking:

“Can you send over content for your webpage?”

This often leads to:

• Inconsistent tone

• Submissions that are too long, too short, and/or off-target

• Internal jargon

• Content written for insiders instead of prospective audiences

A different approach is to start with conversations and interviews.

Ask department leaders, faculty, program directors, advancement staff, or leadership questions like:

• What do constituents misunderstand most often?

• What questions come up repeatedly? 

• What outcomes are you most proud of?

• What stories best represent this experience?

• What makes this program different?

• What should someone know after visiting this page?

People are often much better at speaking naturally about their work than writing polished marketing copy from scratch.

These conversations also surface emotional language, anecdotes, and differentiators that make websites more compelling.

Establish Priorities Before Writing Begins

Before drafting anything, align your organization around:

• Key messages

• Brand positioning

• Audience priorities

• Voice and tone

• Core differentiators

Without shared messaging guardrails, important themes get buried and the user experience becomes fragmented. A website should feel cohesive, even when many people contribute to it.

Your Website Is for Users, Not Departments

Many organizations unintentionally structure website content around internal organizational charts.

Your audiences, however, are not thinking in these silos.

They are asking:

• Can I see myself here?

• What makes this different?

• Is this worth the investment?

• What happens next?

Strong website copy guides users through those emotional and logistical questions clearly and efficiently.

Build Templates to Simplify Collaboration

Contributors are more successful when given structure.

Provide:

• Target audience(s)

• Page objective 

• Word count range 

• CTA expectations

• SEO/AEO considerations

• Sample formatting

This keeps the process organized while promoting consistency across the site.

SEO Shapes the Process

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) should not be treated as a final checklist after content is written.

It should inform the writing process itself.

As pages are developed, organizations should consider which phrases and terminology visitors are using and pages that are most important for discoverability. 

This influences:

• Headlines

• Page structure

• FAQs

• Metadata

• Keyword integration

• Content hierarchy

AEO Matters Too

Today’s website content also needs to support AEO (Answer Engine Optimization).

AI-driven search tools increasingly pull direct answers from websites when responding to user questions.

That means websites should include:

• Direct language

• Structured headings

• FAQ sections

• Easily scannable formatting

Organizations that clearly explain who they serve and what makes them different are more likely to appear in AI-generated responses and search summaries.

Expect Editing and Alignment to Take Time

The first draft is rarely the hardest part.

The real work often involves:

• Consolidating feedback

• Reducing repetition

• Aligning priorities

• Balancing stakeholder opinions

• Formatting content in a user-friendly manner 

• Maintaining a consistent voice

Website rewrites benefit from having a lead strategist and a primary editor, as well as defined approval workflows to keep the project moving. 

A strong content process helps organizations move beyond simply “updating pages” and toward building a website that is clearer, more strategic, more discoverable, and more reflective of who they truly are. This is not a process to take shortcuts and build in more time than you need to alleviate pressure.