If the site works on phones, runs on a supported system you can update, and its structure still fits the business, repair it: content, photographs, speed and forms. Redesign when those foundations are wrong.

Tired is not a diagnosis

Most owners decide the website needs a redesign the same way: it looks tired, and a competitor has just launched something new. The next step is a quote and a few months of work.

Sometimes that is right. Often, though, the tiredness lives in the words, the photographs and a few broken details, and a new design would carry all of them across unchanged.

Before choosing, find out which kind of tired the site is.

What tired usually means

The fifth is the one that decides it. Almost everything else on the list can be repaired on the site you have; a layout that does not work on phones usually cannot.

Signs the foundations are wrong

A few problems sit underneath the design, and no amount of new content fixes them.

The site does not adapt to phones. Google's Mobile-Friendly Test will say so in a minute, and since May the signal that favours mobile-friendly pages in phone searches has been stronger.

It runs on a system nobody can safely update: Drupal 6, which has had no security updates since February, or an old WordPress site held back by a theme or plugin its maker abandoned.

The business cannot get in. The logins, the hosting or the domain belong to a former web company, and every change waits on someone who no longer answers.

And the structure no longer fits. The menu describes the business of five years ago, and the services that now pay the bills sit two levels down.

What repairs can fix

Everything else is repair work, done on the site you have, usually in stages and without taking it offline.

Text can be rewritten page by page. Real photographs can replace stock. A slider can become one image, a form can be pointed at the right inbox, and a missing page can be added.

Moving to HTTPS belongs here too. Chrome 56, arriving in January, will flag password and card forms on plain HTTP pages as not secure, and a certificate on a sound site is a repair, not a rebuild.

A worked example

An insulation contractor with two crews tops up attics and insulates walls and crawl spaces in older houses around a small Interior city. The owner thought the website looked dated and asked for a new one.

Before quoting, his web company checked the foundations. The theme was responsive and passed the Mobile-Friendly Test, WordPress and its plugins were current, and the owner held every login.

The problems were on the surface: stock photographs of fibreglass in a spotless attic, a services page leading with a product the company no longer installed, and a quote form that sent to an employee who had left.

Nothing on that list needed a new design. The repair took three weeks: a day photographing real jobs, rewritten service pages, a fixed form and a lighter home page.

A redesign would have taken months and, without the content work, launched with the same stock photographs and the same broken form.

What each path costs in time

A repair is measured in days or weeks. It can be done in pieces, the most urgent first, and the site stays live throughout.

A redesign is measured in months. Planning, writing, design, building and testing each take time, and the slowest part is usually the owner's: answering questions, finding photographs and approving pages.

A redesign also brings work after launch: redirects from old addresses, checks that forms and tracking still work, and a few weeks while search engines settle on the new pages.

The trap on each side

Repairing a site whose foundations are wrong is the expensive mistake. Each fix costs more than the last, and the site still fails on a phone at the end of it.

Redesigning a site whose foundations are sound is the wasteful one. The new site looks better and says the same things, because the words and photographs were never part of the brief.

Both mistakes come from deciding before looking.

Four checks that settle it

First, phones: open the main pages on a phone and run them through the Mobile-Friendly Test.

Second, the system: find out which version of WordPress, Drupal or anything else the site runs, and whether its theme and plugins are still maintained.

Third, the structure: set the menu beside a list of the services that bring in money now.

Fourth, access: confirm the business holds the logins for the site, the hosting and the domain.

Four passes point to repair. A failure on any of the first three usually means a redesign, and a failure on the fourth means sorting out access before anything else.

Ask for an assessment first

A request for a redesign quote tends to produce a redesign quote. Ask instead for an assessment: what is sound, what is broken, and what each fix would take.

A good assessment separates foundation problems from surface ones and puts a rough time on each. It also uses what the site's records show about what already works.

That takes a few hours and can save months of the wrong project.

The counter-case

Sometimes a redesign is right even on sound foundations. A business that has changed its name, merged or moved into very different work may need a site built around the new business.

A small site where every page needs rewriting anyway can cost little more to rebuild than to repair.

And an owner who wants a new look, with the content prepared first, is making a reasonable choice rather than a mistake.

For most tired sites, though, check the foundations first, repair what can be repaired, and redesign only when the foundations fail.

Before asking for quotes

  1. Open the site on a phone and note problems.
  2. Put key pages through the Mobile-Friendly Test.
  3. Find out which system and versions it runs.
  4. Compare the menu with what you sell now.
  5. Confirm you hold every login and account.
  6. List the surface problems page by page.
  7. Ask for an assessment before a quote.

Step four is the one owners skip, because it is the least technical. A site whose structure still describes the old business needs more than new paint, and no list of repairs will reveal that.

Knowing what the current site brings in makes the choice clearer, as covered in measuring whether the website is worth its cost.

Frequently asked questions

How do I know if my site needs a redesign?

Check the foundations: whether it works on phones, runs on a system that still gets security updates, has a structure that fits the business now, and gives you every login.

What can a repair fix?

Text, photographs, speed, broken forms, missing pages and moving to HTTPS. All of it can be done on the site you have, in stages, without taking it offline.

How long does each option take?

A repair takes days or weeks and can be done in pieces. A redesign takes months, and the owner's time for content and approvals usually sets the pace.

Why not just redesign to be safe?

Because a redesign on sound foundations often carries the same old words and photographs into a new layout. When content is the problem, a new design leaves it unsolved.

When is repairing a mistake?

When the foundations are wrong: a site that fails on phones or runs on an unmaintained system. Each repair costs more than the last and the core problem remains.

What should I ask a web company for?

An assessment before a quote: what is sound, what is broken, and roughly how long each fix would take, so the choice rests on the site, not impressions.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Website looking tired after five years?

Send us the site's address. We will say which parts are sound, which need repair, and whether a redesign is worth it.

Start a Conversation