Website redesign: when it's worth it, and when it isn't

We turn down redesigns. Not often, but regularly enough that it's worth writing down why — because "the site looks dated" is a reason to feel uncomfortable, not necessarily a reason to spend four thousand pounds.

Five reasons a redesign is genuinely worth it

• It's slow, and you've measured it. Not "feels slow" — tested on a phone on mobile data. If a page takes more than about three seconds to become useful, you're losing a meaningful share of visitors before they read anything. Speed problems are often structural and a rebuild is the honest fix.
• It's bad on a phone. Most visitors are on mobile. If yours pinches, scrolls sideways, or hides the phone number behind three taps, that's revenue, not aesthetics.
• You can't change anything yourself. If updating a price means emailing someone and waiting three days, the site is costing you either money or accuracy every month.
• It describes a business you no longer run. New services, new market, new pricing — a site that sells your old business will attract your old enquiries.
• It doesn't ask for anything. If a visitor who wants to buy has to work out how, the site isn't finished, regardless of how it looks.

Four reasons it isn't

• "It looks dated." On its own, this is a preference, and you look at your own site far more than any customer does. If it's fast, clear and converting, changing the typeface will not increase enquiries.
• "We're not ranking." Usually a content and structure problem, not a design one. A redesign that keeps the same three thin pages will rank exactly as well as the old one. What ranks is a page per thing you sell, answering the question a customer actually typed.
• "A competitor got a new site." You have no idea whether it worked for them.
• "Nobody visits." Then you have a distribution problem. A better-looking site with no visitors converts nothing. Fix where people come from first.

Cheaper things to try first

• Rewrite the homepage first screen. What you do, who for, and what to do next, in the words a customer would use. This is free and frequently the highest-return change available to you.
• Split one services page into several. One page per service, each answering one question. Costs a few hundred pounds at most and is the most reliable search improvement there is.
• Add real proof. Named testimonials, actual project photos, actual numbers. Anonymous quotes read as invented.
• Compress the images. On most small-business sites, oversized photography is the entire speed problem. This is an afternoon.
• Fix titles and descriptions. Unique per page, describing that page. Often still site-wide duplicates.
• Check the forms actually work and go to an inbox someone reads. Test them this week; broken forms are commoner than anyone expects.

If those changes get you where you need to be, you've saved thousands. If you do them and the site still can't do the job, you now know the rebuild is necessary rather than hoping so.

How to redesign without losing your rankings

This is where redesigns cause real damage. A new site can undo years of search visibility in a week if these are skipped — and it happens often.

• Write down every existing URL before you start, along with which ones get traffic. Your analytics and Search Console have this.
• Redirect every old URL to its closest new equivalent. Permanent redirects, one to one. Pointing everything at the homepage is the single most common and most damaging mistake.
• Keep the pages that earn traffic. If an old article or service page brings enquiries, it moves across — improved, not deleted.
• Keep the good page titles. If a page ranks, don't rewrite its title for style reasons.
• Don't lose your content volume. Replacing 1,200 useful words with 200 elegant ones is a downgrade in Google's eyes and often in a customer's.
• Submit the new sitemap in Search Console on launch day and watch coverage for a fortnight.
• Check the new site isn't blocking crawlers. Staging sites are usually set to block indexing, and that setting goes live with the launch more often than anyone admits.

What a redesign costs

Redirect mapping and content migration are included in those prices rather than being a surprise line later. Our guide to UK website costs covers what pushes each band up, and the website design page sets out what's included at each tier.

Before you brief anyone

• Name the single job the new site has to do better than the old one.
• Decide how you'll know it worked — enquiries, bookings, calls. A number, not a feeling.
• List the pages that currently bring you business. Those are assets.
• Sort the content. Copy and photography are the usual delay, not the build.
• Confirm you control the domain and hosting. If a previous developer holds either, resolve that before anything else.

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