How to Write a Website Redesign Proposal, What to Include in It  + Template Example

In addition to technical skills and artistic talent, web designers must know how to write a website redesign proposal.

Unlike a web design proposal, the website redesign proposal conveys the plan and requirements for improving an existing site’s appearance and performance.

If written properly, your project proposal may help you win bids and gain new clients. Therefore, it’s a valuable skill all website designers should master ‒ especially those wanting to start a web design business and take on bigger projects.

This article will cover all the elements to include in a website redesign proposal and how to showcase them properly. We will also provide a website redesign proposal template with useful tips.

First, let’s dive into the purpose of writing a website redesign proposal.

Download web design proposal template

Why Write a Website Redesign Proposal

When a business wants to revamp its company website, it sends a request for proposal (RFP) to vendors for a potential collaboration.

Interested website designers and web design agencies can submit a web design proposal to answer the website redesign RFP and enter the bidding process.

The company then picks a winner whose proposal best aligns with the company’s expectations. In this case, writing a compelling website redesign proposal makes you stand out from the competition.

A website redesign proposal also helps to create opportunities for new projects. Unlike a website design proposal that targets clients who don’t have a website yet, it promotes beneficial changes to the prospective clients’ current website.

What to Include in a Website Redesign Proposal

Web redesign proposals are available in different formats, so it’s best to draft your own proposal template. However, there are several key components to include in a winning proposal. Let’s take a look at each of those to better understand their purpose.

An Introduction to Both Businesses

Starting the proposal with the potential client’s company background emphasizes your understanding of their business values and culture. Companies partner with vendors familiar with their organization, as they’re more likely to fulfill the project requirements.

Follow it up with your or your agency’s background, achievements, and web design certifications. Doing so helps to build trust and establish your credibility as an expert in the industry.

This section contributes to leaving a strong first impression on your potential client, so do thorough research to write the perfect draft.

Describe the Potential Benefits of the Redesign

A website redesign RFP usually states the project’s main goal to attract the right vendor for the job. Additional benefits besides the client’s expected results will be a plus point.

Showcasing the potential benefits of a website redesign project creates a need for your design services and potentially influences their decision.

Support your recommendations with relevant screenshots of the current website and new design concepts to improve them. Doing so shows you have researched the website redesign RFP and your proposal has what it takes to achieve its goals.

Client Testimonials

Testimonials show that you have provided similar website redesign services to other clients in the past and exceeded their expectations.

Like achievements and awards, positive testimonials are a testament to your quality and work ethic. Therefore, they help make an impression on future web design clients.

Provided Services

Describing your website redesign services gives the client and stakeholders a better understanding of your work. It ensures everyone is on the same page regarding their expectations. Thus, ensure they align with your proposed solution to the client’s problem.

If you have done a similar project before, include a portfolio of your previous work in the website redesign proposal or as a separate document to add value to your bid.

A Timeline for the Proposed Solution

The proposed timeline helps you estimate the budget and time needed to finish the project. It chronologically covers each milestone’s deliverables, project actions, and delivery date ‒ giving the client and stakeholders a closer look into how you will tackle the project.

When proposing a solution to your client’s problem, consider its duration. Clients often set a fixed date to launch their new website and resume its functionality. If you can’t fit your proposed solution into that timeframe, the potential client will most likely drop your bid.

On the other hand, creating an unrealistic timeline to win the RFP for website redesign will only hurt the client’s trust and your brand reputation. Therefore, order the tasks based on their dependencies to ensure optimal workflow efficiency.

Consider creating a Gantt chart to visualize the project’s milestones and task dependencies, making the data easier to read.

Budget Estimate

Breaking down the project’s budget is a key component that will make or break your bid. While charging less makes your website redesign proposal extremely attractive to clients, it may be a bad business move that will hold back your business growth.

Price your bid appropriately by including the cost estimation of all project resources required to deliver the proposed solution. Don’t forget to factor in the website’s type, complexity, scope, and size.

Estimate the cost of human resources by multiplying the rate of developers involved in the website proposal by the project’s time estimation. You should still include your professional rate even if you’re outsourcing.

Material costs include new website hosting, extension licenses, and website themes. You can bundle them into several plans and add new features like social media integration, new design elements, and resource upgrades as upsells.

For instance, Hostinger’s professional web hosting plans let you set up and manage the client’s website from a single dashboard.

Also, consider the target audience of your website proposal when brainstorming upsells to optimize revenue.

Payment Details and Milestones

Detailing the project’s payment terms and milestones from the beginning ensures all parties know their financial and work obligations. Furthermore, it keeps the project on track and builds trust between you and the client.

Start by assigning a monetary value to each milestone on the website proposal based on the cost estimate for its deliverables. Many vendors use this milestone payment method by asking for payment before or after a task’s delivery date to maintain a healthy cash flow throughout the project.

Be specific when listing the payment terms to promote transparency and accountability. For instance, determine each task’s completion criteria and provide a contingency plan if the client asks you to remove a milestone.

Additional payment details to include in your proposal template are the invoicing and payment methods. Make sure they’re reliable and align with the client’s preferences.

Legal Part

All parties must know their legal obligations before signing the website redesign contract. Ensure that by including an overview of legal requirements you and the client must fulfill throughout the project.

Don’t forget to add a termination clause with legal consequences in case there is a breach of contract. It lets you terminate the contract early and protects your business from legal liabilities if the client doesn’t perform their contractual obligations.

How to Write a Website Redesign Proposal

There are no fixed rules for writing a proposal – customize your website redesign proposal template to your targeted client or website redesign RFP.

Here are some tips for writing a compelling website redesign proposal template that stands out.

1. Determine the Pain Points of the Client Website

One of the best ways to create an eye-catching executive summary is to address the limitations of the client’s current site and how those shortcomings can hurt their business. It encourages the client to keep reading the website proposal and potentially creates a need for your services.

Some of the most common website pain points include low website traffic, low conversion rate, and inconsistent brand identity. While some clients list their challenges with the current site, it’s better to do your research and identify any pain points the client may have missed.

Detail your recommended solution in the body of the website redesign proposal. For instance, suggest a search engine optimization overhaul and new website elements to drive organic traffic and improve brand awareness.

Finally, list competitive advantages to make your web design proposal stand out. For instance, you may leverage your highly skilled human resources, cutting-edge web design tools, or unique web design services to convince the client of your value as a vendor.

2. Set Achievable Goals for the Website

When setting the project goals for your website redesign, use the SMART model:

• Specific ‒ set clear goals for you or your team.
• Measurable ‒ ensure you can keep track of your goals’ progress.
• Achievable ‒ your project goals should be challenging yet feasible with the available resources.
• Relevant ‒ the goals should contribute to your business’ growth and revenue.
• Time-bound ‒ each objective must have a realistic delivery date.

Once you create a list of goals, order them based on their priority. For instance, if the client’s current site has fewer page visits, the top priority is increasing organic traffic.

The rest of the goals are secondary, offering additional benefits to the web redesign project. A lower bounce rate, better user experience, and an improved navigation system are secondary objectives that add value to the new site beyond its primary goals.

3. Outline the Redesign Proposal

After determining the primary and secondary objectives for the site redesign, the next step is identifying the features needed to achieve them.

For example, if the website redesign project aims to increase organic traffic, suggest adding a blogging functionality and integrating social media to the new site.

Additionally, aim to achieve more than the project’s top priority goals to gain competitive advantages in the bidding process. You can do so by adding optional functionality to address the secondary objectives of the website design RFP.

Using the example above, list optional functionality like a comment system and user management to support the core blogging features. Optional functionality may not directly contribute to the primary objective, but it increases the value of the core features.

4. Estimate the Scope of the Redesign Proposal

A project scope outlines the project’s deliverables, requirements, and boundaries. Including it in your website redesign template helps to manage client expectations regarding the project’s budget, resources, duration, and results.

Here are some tips for creating a clear project scope for your website redesign proposal:

• Create a visual ‒ turning project scope elements into diagrams and graphics makes it easier for clients and stakeholders to understand them.
• Define out-of-scope tasks ‒ list tasks irrelevant to the project goals to avoid unexpected expenses and impromptu responsibilities.
• Specify the deliverables ‒ be specific when explaining the results the client will receive at the end of the project.
• Address project assumptions ‒ inform the client and stakeholders about any limitations and risks that may affect the project’s results and cause scope creep.

5. Propose a Budget

Once the project scope is set, estimate the website redesign cost. Multiple budgeting methods can help you streamline the process. The two most popular include the bottom-up estimation and the three-point estimation methods.

The bottom-up estimation method breaks down the project’s required functionality into individual tasks and estimates the time and resources needed to complete them. This method provides the most accurate estimates but takes longer to calculate.

In comparison, the three-point estimation method uses previous projects’ data to calculate pessimistic, optimistic, and realistic estimates. Having input from your team members ensures the cost estimate is reasonable. However, you must have historical data to avoid subjectivity.

Using your preferred method, present the cost estimates for the website overhaul in a table to make your proposal template easier to understand. Include a cost summary to save your client’s time when reviewing the proposal.

Website Redesign Proposal Template

After knowing all the key components of a proposal and how to write one, it’s time to put your knowledge into practice. We’ll cover the three primary sections of a website redesign proposal template and provide examples to help you get started.

For this website redesign proposal sample, we’re using a fictional company called “MyBusiness.” As there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, we hope this website redesign proposal sample inspires your own proposal template.

Problem Statement

The problem statement section lists all the issues on MyBusiness’ current site. For instance, the website is experiencing fewer page visits and a higher bounce rate. These findings are the top priority goals you must address.

Next, expand your problem statement by pinpointing other issues not stated in the website redesign RFP. Your observations show that the current website is outdated, has a non-responsive design, and its design elements take longer than three seconds to load.

Explain that these issues might discourage visitors from exploring the website and returning, affecting the bounce rate and traffic. The aim is to convince the client that you can do more than just fix the main issues. Once you identify all the issues, start listing possible solutions on the website proposal.

Solution Suggestion

This section presents your solutions to the problem statement. For example, suggest migrating to a new content management system with better SEO capabilities to drive more traffic to the client’s website.

Then, list optional functionality to increase organic traffic, such as blogging tools and social media integration. You can offer SEO and paid advertising services as an upsell to increase brand awareness and expand the client’s reach via popular social networks.

Additionally, offer the client a front-end makeover to rebrand the current site. For instance, implement responsive design to deliver a consistent user experience across all devices. You can also create a new website template using web design best practices to support the rebranding effort.

Estimated Time and Budget

This section showcases the proposed timeline, including the start of the project and the new website launch, and budget estimates for the site redesign. Include the following items’ estimates and whether they’re recurring expenses or not:

• CMS
• Website hosting
• Website security tools, including an SSL certificate
• Tools for blogging and social media integration
• A premium website template (unless you design it yourself)

State that you are using the milestone payment method, and there will be a deposit requirement before the start of the project. The deposit will cover the CMS and hosting expenses.

Address other queries posed by the client, such as penalty and termination clauses, in your own redesign proposal.

Conclusion

A website redesign proposal helps web designers sell their services to potential clients. With the right proposal template, you can make them see the benefits of hiring you to rework their site’s appearance.

Through this article, we discussed the key elements to include in a redesign proposal and provided tips to make your bid stand out. We hope our website redesign proposal sample and template prepare you for upcoming website redesign RFPs. Good luck!

Website Redesign Proposal FAQ

This section will answer some of the most frequently asked questions about website redesign proposals.