Redesign
, 2 min read
Redesign or fix: when a website actually needs rebuilding
A site that feels tired usually needs a few fixes, not a new build. How to tell which one yours needs before you pay for either.
Owners usually decide on a redesign because they are bored of looking at their own site. Visitors are not bored of it, because most of them have never seen it before. That is worth remembering before spending money on something new.
The real question is whether the site does its job. If it does, fix the parts that do not. If the foundation is the problem, a rebuild is often cheaper than years of patching.
Signs it needs fixing, not rebuilding
- The prices, hours or photos are out of date.
- It is slow, mostly because of large images.
- People cannot find the phone number or the enquiry form quickly.
- A few pages are missing, such as one per service.
- It works on a phone, but feels cramped.
All of these can be fixed on the site you already have. New copy, resized images, a clearer contact section and two extra pages will do more for enquiries than a new colour scheme.
Signs a rebuild is the cheaper option
- It is hard to use on a phone, not just a little cramped.
- Nobody can edit it, because the person who built it has gone and left no logins.
- It runs on a builder or plugin stack that breaks whenever something updates.
- It is slow even after the images are fixed.
- The business has changed so much that the structure no longer fits what you sell.
If you are paying to fix the same thing for the third time, the fix has become more expensive than the rebuild.
Before you rebuild anything
- Make sure the domain is in your name. A rebuild is the moment you find out it is not.
- Open Search Console and note which pages bring in search visitors. Those addresses need to keep working on the new site.
- Save every page of text and every image you want to keep. Old sites disappear faster than people expect.
- Write down what the site has to do better, in plain words. "More enquiries for the bridal package" is a brief. "Look more modern" is not.
Do not lose your search traffic
The most expensive mistake in a rebuild is changing every page address and forgetting the old ones. Anyone who bookmarked or found the old pages lands on an error, and the pages Google had learned to trust start again from nothing. Each old address that had visitors should redirect to its closest new page. It is a short list for a small site, and it decides whether the new site starts ahead or behind.
What a redesign costs
A full redesign is priced like a new site, because it is one: the same pages have to be planned, designed and built. Fixes are priced by the job. The difference is usually large, which is exactly why it is worth deciding which one you need before asking for quotes.
What we would tell you
If your site only needs fixing, we will say so, even though it means less work for us. If it does need rebuilding, a new site is the published package price, from $299, one time. Whoever builds it, work through the checklist above first. It is the part that protects what your old site already earned.