Do I need a new website, or just fixes?

Sooner or later, most business owners look at their website and wonder whether it’s time to start again. Maybe it looks dated. Maybe enquiries have dried up. Maybe someone has told you it “needs redoing”.

Sometimes a new site is the right answer. Often it isn’t. A few targeted fixes can do more, cost less and be done in days rather than weeks. This guide will help you work out which you need.

Start with what’s actually wrong

“It looks old” is a feeling, not a problem. Before deciding anything, try to name what the website is failing to do. Most problems fall into one of these:

• People can’t find you. You don’t show up when someone nearby searches for what you do.
• People find you, then leave. They land on the site but don’t call, book or get in touch.
• The site is hard to keep up to date. Changing your prices or opening hours means emailing someone and waiting.
• The site no longer describes your business. You’ve added services, moved, or changed who you work for, and the site hasn’t kept up.

Each of these has a different fix. Only some of them need a new website.

Signs that fixes will do

You probably don’t need to start again if:

• The basics work on a phone. Most of the time people spend online in the UK is on a smartphone, according to Ofcom. Open your site on your own phone. If the text is readable, the buttons are easy to tap and you can find your phone number quickly, the foundations are fine.
• The problems are specific. A slow page, a confusing menu, a contact form nobody uses, a missing service, a poor first line on the homepage. These can all be fixed on their own.
• You can make simple changes yourself, or someone can make them for you quickly.
• You show up in search for your name, and people who know you can find you.

In these cases, the most useful thing is a clear list of what to fix and in what order. Fixing the three things that matter most usually beats rebuilding everything.

Signs it’s time for a new site

Starting again makes more sense if:

• It doesn’t work properly on phones. Google says it uses the mobile version of a site for indexing and ranking. A site that only really works on a computer is held back with both customers and search.
• Nobody can change it. The person who built it has gone, the login is lost, or every small change costs money and time.
• It’s built on something that’s no longer looked after, so things keep breaking or showing security warnings.
• The business has changed so much that fixing the old site would mean rewriting nearly every page anyway.
• Fixes keep piling up. If you’ve already patched the same problems several times, the patching may be costing more than a fresh start would.

The questions to ask before you decide

1. What should the website help you do? More calls? More bookings? Fewer time-wasting enquiries? Be specific. “Look more professional” is fine as part of the answer, but it shouldn’t be all of it.
2. What happens on your site today? If you have visitor numbers, look at how many people visit and how many get in touch. If you don’t, ask a few recent customers how they found you and whether they looked at the website.
3. How fast is it? Google’s free PageSpeed Insights tool scores your site out of 100. Google treats 90 or above as good and below 50 as poor. A slow site can often be sped up without starting again.
4. Can you get into it? Check you have the logins for your website, your domain name and your hosting. Whatever you decide, you’ll need them.

If you do start again, don’t lose what works

A new website can throw away things you didn’t know were helping you. The most common is search. If your old pages show up in Google, changing their addresses without telling Google can make them disappear for a while.

Google’s own guidance on moving a site says to expect “temporary fluctuation” in rankings, and to point old addresses at the new ones (called redirects) for “generally at least 1 year”. Anyone building you a new site should know how to do this. Ask them before you start.

It’s also worth keeping:

• The words that work. If customers often mention a line from your site, keep it.
• Your reviews and photos. Real ones are hard to replace.
• Your contact details, exactly as they are on your Google Business Profile. Same name, address and phone number everywhere.

What each route usually involves

Fixes might take a few hours or a few days. They’re best when you know what’s wrong, or when someone can tell you. We can do the fixes for you: just get in touch.

A new website takes longer and costs more, but should solve several problems at once and last for years. Our Simple site is £750 including VAT, and our Business site is £1,800 including VAT. Bigger projects are priced individually.

If you’re not sure which you need, that’s normal. The free website health check gives you a plain-English look at what’s working against you in a couple of minutes. If you’d like an expert to go through it properly and tell you what to do first, a website review does exactly that.