Web Design · Strategy & planning
The Best Prompt for a Website Redesign
The best prompt for a website redesign starts from the site you already have rather than a blank page. This one asks the model to diagnose each problem against the evidence you paste in, give every current page a keep, improve, merge or remove verdict, and choose between a refresh, a restructure and a rebuild. You get back a new sitemap, an old-to-new URL map, migration risks and a rollout plan in phases.
Website Redesign Prompt
Diagnoses an existing site from the evidence you supply, then plans what to keep, merge or remove, the new structure, a URL map and a phased rollout.
- Works with
- ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini
- Difficulty
- Intermediate
- Complexity
- Multi-part reply
- Variables
- 6
- Version
- 1.0
Customize this prompt
Fill in what you know. Anything left blank stays as a [bracketed placeholder]. Nothing you type leaves your browser.
6 variables · fields marked * matter most
# Role You are a web strategist who leads redesigns. You treat a redesign as a repair job: find what is broken, keep what works, and change nothing without a reason. # The site today - Organization: [Organization] - Current pages and structure: [Current pages and structure] - Problems we want to fix: [Problems to fix] - Evidence we have (analytics, search data, user or staff feedback): [Evidence you have] - What the redesign must achieve: [What the redesign must achieve] - Must not change: [Must not change] # Task Work through these stages in order. 1. Diagnosis. For each problem listed, give the most likely cause, the evidence above that supports it, and your confidence (high, medium, low). If no supplied evidence supports a cause, say so. 2. Page inventory. Put every current page in a table with a verdict: keep, improve, merge, or remove. Give a one-line reason for each verdict. 3. Scope decision. Recommend one of: visual refresh, restructure, or full rebuild. Explain why the smaller options are or are not enough. 4. New structure. Give the proposed sitemap as a nested list, then an old-to-new URL map covering every page that moves, merges or disappears. 5. Priority pages. For the homepage and the two pages that matter most to the goal, describe the change as before and after: section order, content, and call to action. 6. Migration risks. List what could be lost in the move (search visibility, inbound links, tracking, forms, integrations) and the safeguard for each. 7. Rollout. Split the work into phases that can each ship on their own, and name the measure that would show each phase worked. 8. Gaps. List the information you were missing, ordered by how much it would change your recommendations. # Rules - Use only the evidence supplied. Do not invent traffic figures, conversion rates, rankings or user quotes. Label any conclusion that goes beyond the evidence as [INFERENCE]. - Every proposed change must name the problem it addresses. Drop changes that only make the site look newer. - Treat the must-not-change list as fixed, and flag any recommendation that comes close to it. - Do not propose a new platform unless a listed problem cannot be solved on the current one. # Output format Eight numbered headings matching the stages. Tables for stages 2, 4 (the URL map) and 6. Short paragraphs or lists elsewhere. No introduction and no closing summary.
Use it when you are
- Scoping a redesign before asking agencies or freelancers for quotes
- Deciding whether a site needs a rebuild or only a restructure of its existing pages
- Preparing a page inventory and redirect map ahead of a platform migration
- Giving a stakeholder group a shared, written case for what will change and why
Why this prompt works
Diagnosis is tied to evidence, with a confidence level
Redesign plans often rest on opinions about what feels wrong. Stage one makes the model connect each complaint to something you actually pasted in and rate its own confidence. Where nothing supports a cause, it has to say so, which tells you what to check in your analytics before any design work is paid for.
Every existing page gets a verdict
A blank-page plan quietly discards pages that still earn traffic or links. The inventory table forces a decision on each one, and the merge and remove verdicts feed directly into the URL map in stage four, so nothing disappears without a destination.
The smallest sufficient scope has to be argued for
Asking the model to pick between refresh, restructure and rebuild, and to explain why the lighter options fall short, counters the tendency to recommend starting over. The rule against proposing a new platform without a matching problem does the same job for technology choices.
Migration risk is a named stage, not an afterthought
Lost redirects, broken forms and missing tracking are typical ways a relaunch underperforms the site it replaced. Listing each risk beside a safeguard gives whoever builds the new site a checklist to work from on launch day, and the URL map from stage four supplies the redirects it calls for.
How to use it
- List your current pages one per line with the URL path first. An export from your CMS or sitemap file saves typing.
- Write the problems in plain terms, as the people who complain about them would describe them.
- Paste whatever evidence you have, even if it is a handful of numbers or three customer emails. Do not tidy it into conclusions first.
- Run the prompt, then read stage 8 before anything else. If the top gap is something you can look up, add it and run the prompt again.
- Check the URL map against your real site: every address that moves needs a redirect, and the model only knows the pages you listed.
- Take stages 2 to 4 to the person who will build the site and ask them to challenge the scope decision.
AI model compatibility
| Model | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | Expected to work | OpenAI's prompt guide suggests delimiters around distinct inputs. If you paste an analytics export, put it between triple quotes and say which columns matter. |
| Claude | Expected to work | Anthropic's guidance recommends XML-style tags for supplied material. Wrapping the page list in <pages> tags and the evidence in <evidence> tags keeps the two from blurring together. |
| Gemini | Expected to work | A long page list is easier to work with as one page per line with its URL path first, so the inventory table can follow the same order. |
“Expected to work” means the prompt uses plain, model-independent structure and has been reviewed for that — not that it has been run on that model. A model is marked Tested only when a test record is published below.
Worked example
Scenario: An independent furniture maker whose product pages attract visitors but produce few showroom enquiries.
# Role You are a web strategist who leads redesigns. You treat a redesign as a repair job: find what is broken, keep what works, and change nothing without a reason. # The site today - Organization: Harbor & Pine, an independent furniture maker selling direct from one showroom - Current pages and structure: / — hero slideshow, about text, three featured products /shop — all 42 products in one grid /shop/[product] — photos, dimensions, price, add to cart /about — company history /our-workshop — workshop photos, overlaps with About /care-guide — wood care articles /blog — 11 posts, last updated two years ago /contact — form, address, opening hours - Problems we want to fix: Product pages get visits but few showroom appointment requests. The shop grid is hard to browse on a phone. Nobody on staff updates the blog. - Evidence we have (analytics, search data, user or staff feedback): Analytics, last 90 days: /care-guide is the top landing page from search; most product page visits are on mobile; /contact is rarely reached from product pages. Two customers emailed asking whether pieces can be seen in person. - What the redesign must achieve: More showroom appointment requests from product pages - Must not change: Shopify store, existing logo, the /care-guide URLs # Task Work through these stages in order. 1. Diagnosis. For each problem listed, give the most likely cause, the evidence above that supports it, and your confidence (high, medium, low). If no supplied evidence supports a cause, say so. 2. Page inventory. Put every current page in a table with a verdict: keep, improve, merge, or remove. Give a one-line reason for each verdict. 3. Scope decision. Recommend one of: visual refresh, restructure, or full rebuild. Explain why the smaller options are or are not enough. 4. New structure. Give the proposed sitemap as a nested list, then an old-to-new URL map covering every page that moves, merges or disappears. 5. Priority pages. For the homepage and the two pages that matter most to the goal, describe the change as before and after: section order, content, and call to action. 6. Migration risks. List what could be lost in the move (search visibility, inbound links, tracking, forms, integrations) and the safeguard for each. 7. Rollout. Split the work into phases that can each ship on their own, and name the measure that would show each phase worked. 8. Gaps. List the information you were missing, ordered by how much it would change your recommendations. # Rules - Use only the evidence supplied. Do not invent traffic figures, conversion rates, rankings or user quotes. Label any conclusion that goes beyond the evidence as [INFERENCE]. - Every proposed change must name the problem it addresses. Drop changes that only make the site look newer. - Treat the must-not-change list as fixed, and flag any recommendation that comes close to it. - Do not propose a new platform unless a listed problem cannot be solved on the current one. # Output format Eight numbered headings matching the stages. Tables for stages 2, 4 (the URL map) and 6. Short paragraphs or lists elsewhere. No introduction and no closing summary.
What a good response should contain
- A diagnosis that links the low enquiry rate to the missing path from product pages to an appointment, citing the supplied analytics and the two emails, with a stated confidence
- An inventory table that merges /our-workshop into /about and gives the blog a clear verdict with a reason
- A scope decision that weighs a restructure on the current Shopify store against a rebuild, and explains the choice
- An old-to-new URL map that leaves the /care-guide addresses untouched
- A gaps list asking for things such as appointment capacity, product-level sales data and where care-guide readers go next
This is an illustrative scenario showing how to fill in the prompt and what to look for. It is not a recorded model output. Recorded outputs will be published here once this prompt has a test record.
Testing and editorial review
Status: Untested. Reviewed for structure and clarity by the editorial team. No recorded model test yet.
No test record has been published for this prompt yet. When it is tested, this section will show the model and version, the date, the inputs, the actual output and notes against our seven-point rubric. We do not publish numerical scores.
| Author | TheBestPromptFor Editorial Team — The editorial team writes, reviews and maintains the prompts and guides on TheBestPromptFor. Prompts are drafted with AI assistance and reviewed against published editorial standards. |
|---|---|
| Published | November 15, 2026 |
| Last reviewed | November 15, 2026 |
| Last tested | Not yet tested |
| Version history |
|
Limitations and things to check
- The model cannot see your live site. It works only from the page list and evidence you paste, so anything you leave out is invisible to it.
- Causes in the diagnosis are hypotheses. Confirm them with analytics or a few user conversations before committing budget.
- The URL map covers the pages you listed. Crawl the real site to find addresses you forgot, including old campaign pages and PDFs.
- Phase timings and effort are not estimated reliably without knowing your team and platform; ask your builder for those.
Alternative prompts
Web Design
Complete Website Design Prompt
A structured brief that walks an AI model from business goals to sitemap, page layouts, visual direction and responsive rules.
- ChatGPT
- Claude
- Gemini
Web Design
UX Audit Prompt
Runs a heuristic review of one user flow: a step-by-step walkthrough, findings tied to usability heuristics with severity ratings, and fixes.
- ChatGPT
- Claude
- Gemini
SEO
Technical SEO Audit Prompt
Reviews crawl exports, URL lists and Search Console notes you supply, and returns evidence-backed findings ranked by impact with a fix and a check for each.
- ChatGPT
- Claude
- Gemini
SEO
Content Refresh Prompt
Audits an existing page section by section, decides whether to refresh, rewrite, merge or leave it, and lists what to keep, update, cut, add and verify.
- ChatGPT
- Claude
- Gemini
- Perplexity
Related resources
Guide
How to Improve AI Responses
A diagnostic approach to weak AI answers: name the fault, trace it to the gap in your prompt, then follow up precisely or rewrite and start again.
Technical guide
Prompt Chaining: Breaking a Task Into Linked Prompts
How to split a large task into a sequence of focused prompts, design the handoffs between them, and debug the chain when a step goes wrong.
Frequently asked questions
How is this different from the general website design prompt?
The website design prompt assumes nothing exists yet and plans from goals outward. This one treats the current site as the main input: it audits what is there, protects what works, and plans the move. Use it whenever you have live pages, existing search traffic or links you could lose.
What if I have no analytics at all?
Leave the evidence field blank or paste what you do have, such as customer emails or questions staff hear repeatedly. The prompt tells the model to mark unsupported conclusions as inference and to list missing information by importance, so the response doubles as a list of what to start measuring.
Can I use the output as a brief for an agency?
Yes, as a starting point. The inventory, scope decision and migration risks give an agency concrete material to respond to. Expect them to question parts of it, and treat that as useful: the plan was produced without seeing your site or talking to your customers.
Sources and references
- Prompt engineering overview — Anthropic
- Prompt engineering guide — OpenAI
- SEO Starter Guide — Google Search Central
Was this prompt useful?
No account needed. Do not include personal information.