Website Redesign: When It's Worth It, and How to Scope One

A redesign is expensive when it is cosmetic and cheap when it is structural. Work out which one you need before you brief anyone.

Signs you only need fixes

• Traffic is fine, conversions are weak → rewrite the hero, offer and CTAs
• Slow on mobile → images, fonts and scripts, not a rebuild
• Dated colours → a design-token refresh

Signs you need a redesign

• The site cannot express what you now sell
• Editing anything requires a developer
• Structure is a maze — no clear path per service
• It fails on phones in ways patching cannot fix

Protect your rankings

1. Export the current URL list and traffic per URL
2. Map every old URL to a new one, 301 the rest
3. Keep titles, descriptions and headings for pages that already rank
4. Resubmit the sitemap on launch day and watch coverage for a fortnight

We scope redesigns this way as standard — see website design.