Redesign or new website: how to decide

Three questions before deciding

Before talking about design, answer these three questions. They settle most cases.

• Does the site do what it should? If it brings calls and enquiries but looks dated, it is a redesign. If it has brought nothing for years, the problem is not its age.
• Can you edit it yourself? A site that can no longer be updated without calling someone, or that nobody has access to any more, is already half dead.
• What is it built on? A tool still maintained can be refreshed. An abandoned tool, a version that no longer gets updates, a purchased theme whose author has vanished: you start over.

When a redesign is enough

A redesign keeps the structure and replaces what is visible: the design, the copy, the photos, sometimes the layout of one or two pages. It suits when:

• the existing pages are the right ones, they are just badly dressed;
• the site ranks well and you really do not want to lose that;
• the tool it runs on is healthy and up to date;
• the budget or the calendar do not allow redoing everything this year.

A well-run redesign can completely change the impression the site leaves without touching what works underneath. It is often the best ratio between effort and result.

When you need to start from scratch

Some sites are not refreshed, they are replaced. The unmistakable signs:

• the site is not readable on a phone, and making it readable would mean redesigning everything;
• it is slow, and nobody knows why;
• the tool is no longer maintained, or nobody knows where the access details are any more;
• your business has changed: new services, new clientele, new name;
• you want to sell online, take bookings online, or connect the site to your tools, and the old one was not built for that.

In those cases, persisting with the existing site costs more than a new one, and delivers less.

The trap: losing your rankings

This is the point everyone discovers too late. Google knows every page of your site at its exact address. If the new site changes the addresses without warning, those pages disappear from the results, and the links pointing to them from other sites lead to an error. Months of visibility can evaporate overnight.

The remedy is called a redirect plan: for every old address, the new page that replaces it, declared permanently. Google itself explains the procedure for a change of addresses. It is list work, thankless, and it is what separates a successful redesign from one that makes the phone go quiet.

• Record every address of the current site before touching anything.
• Decide for each one: it stays, it changes address, or it disappears towards a related page.
• Put the redirects in place on launch day, not the week after.
• Watch Search Console in the following weeks: it will tell you what is missing.

How we decide

We start by looking at what the site brings in and where its visitors come from. Then we check the tool, the speed and how it reads on a phone. Within an hour, we usually know which side we are on. And when it is a new site, the redirect plan is part of the quote, not an option.

Conclusion

Redesign if the structure is good and the tool healthy; new site if the phone, the speed or the business have changed. In both cases, what you must not lose is what Google already knows about you.