A website does not "age" with the years; it stops meeting expectations that have changed. A redesign is expensive, so it matters to judge correctly whether you need one or a few fixes will do.
Signs it is time
- It looks bad on a phone. Most visitors now come from mobile. If the text is tiny and the buttons cannot be tapped, you are losing customers.
- The site is slow and tuning does not fix it.
- It looks dated. Customers judge a company by its website: a 2012 look suggests the company stopped developing long ago.
- It does not bring in customers. There are visits but few enquiries. The problem may be the structure or the copy.
- It cannot be edited. Every small change needs a developer.
- The technology is obsolete. Old PHP and plugins are no longer updated, which is a security risk.
- The business has changed. New services, a new audience, a new language, while the site still describes the old business.
Three options
- Small fixes. Speed work, new copy, repairing forms. The cheapest, and often enough.
- A redesign. A new look and structure while keeping the content and the addresses.
- A new site from scratch. When the old foundation cannot be developed further.
How not to lose your rankings
The biggest danger is losing search positions. When a site is rebuilt, many people change the addresses and forget the redirects: Google cannot find the old pages, and traffic built up over years disappears.
- Before you start, record every page that brings in visitors.
- Keep the old addresses, or set up a 301 redirect from each old URL to the new one.
- Keep the copy that ranks well. Change the design, but not what works.
- After launch, check Search Console for errors and drops in traffic.
Before you decide, we can review your site and tell you what it actually needs: fixes or a redesign.
