A redesign changes how a website looks using the foundations it already has. A rebuild replaces the foundations. The deciding question is not whether you like the look of it, it is whether the thing underneath can still do what you now need: load quickly on a phone, be found in search, be edited without a developer, and grow without being rewritten. If the foundations are sound, a redesign is the cheaper and safer answer. If they are not, a redesign paints over the problem and you pay for the job twice.
Answer these about your current site. They take about ten minutes and they are the same ones we ask on a first call.
Open the site and try it. If adding a service means emailing a developer and waiting, the site is a cost centre rather than a tool. No points to a rebuild.
Not on your office wifi. On a phone, away from the building. Slow sites lose people before the page has finished arriving. A slow site is sometimes fixable, so this one alone does not decide it.
Search what a customer would type, not what you would. If you only appear when someone already knows you, the site is not doing the one job that pays for it. No points to a rebuild.
Not shrink to fit. Work: readable without pinching, buttons you can hit with a thumb, and a phone number that dials when tapped. Most of your customers are judging it here.
If nobody can tell you whether an enquiry came from search, from an ad or from a card in a window, you are spending without knowing what works. Usually fixable without a rebuild.
An abandoned theme or a plugin that stopped being maintained is a security problem that gets worse quietly. An unmaintained platform points to a rebuild on its own.
Reading the answers. Questions 1, 3 and 6 are about the foundations. If two or more of those fail, you are looking at a rebuild and a redesign will not fix it. Questions 2, 4 and 5 are usually repairable on the site you already have, which is a far smaller job than anyone will tell you if they are selling a new website.
This is the part that gets skipped, and it is the part that costs real money when it goes wrong.
Your web address is usually the most valuable thing you own online, because the trust search engines have built up over the years is attached to it. Changing the website does not mean changing the address. Keep it.
Search rankings attach to specific page addresses, not to your site in general. If a page currently sitting on the first page of Google moves from one address to another and nothing points Google at the new one, that position goes back to zero. Every old address needs a permanent redirect to its closest new equivalent, mapped out before launch rather than after someone notices the traffic has gone.
Ask to see the redirect map. It is a dull spreadsheet of old addresses and new ones. Any supplier doing this properly already has it. If the question causes a pause, you have learned something important for free.
Old websites often have one page bringing in a steady trickle of enquiries that nobody remembers writing. Before anything is deleted, it is worth half an hour finding out which pages people actually arrive on. Occasionally the ugliest page on the site is the one earning its keep.
Keep the same analytics property rather than starting a new one. You want to be able to compare the months after launch with the months before it, and you cannot do that from a blank slate.
And sometimes the answer is to leave it alone. If the site loads, works on a phone, says the right things and brings you enquiries, a new one is not what you need. The money goes further on being found.
We have said exactly that on a first call and then not sold anything. It makes for a worse month and it is the right answer, which is why the call gives you a written plan to keep whether you hire us or not. Most of the sites we have built replaced an existing one, and in every case the domain, the history and the rankings came across.
Decided you need a new site, and now working out who should build it?
Agency, freelancer or builder →It can, and it is the single most common way a redesign goes wrong. Rankings are attached to specific URLs, so if the addresses of your pages change and nothing tells Google where they went, the history attached to them is thrown away. Done properly, every old address is mapped to its closest new one with a permanent redirect before launch, and rankings carry across. Ask any supplier to show you their redirect map before the site goes live. If there is not one, that is your answer.
Look underneath rather than at the surface. If you can add a page yourself, it loads quickly on a phone, and it is being found for things other than your own business name, the foundations are sound and a redesign is the cheaper, safer answer. If any of those three fail, a redesign puts new paint on the problem and you end up paying twice.
Yes, and you should. Your domain carries years of history and is usually the most valuable thing you own online. Changing the website does not mean changing the address. Keep the domain, keep the history, and change what sits behind it.
Most of ours go live in 4 to 8 weeks from the first call, depending on size and how quickly content and photography come together. The build is rarely what makes a project late. Waiting on words and pictures is.
Often. If the site loads, works on a phone, says the right things and brings in enquiries, your money is better spent on being found than on being redesigned. We have told people this on the first call and then not sold them anything, which is a worse month for us and the right answer for them.
Thirty minutes on your current site and what it is and is not doing. You leave with a fixed price, a written plan, and a straight answer on whether a new website is really your problem. Keep all three either way.
Direct with the founder · Fixed quote on the call · You own everything · No lock-in contracts