Website redesign that keeps what works and fixes what does not

Signs your website needs a redesign

An old look is the most common reason people give, and often the least important. These are better signals:

• The site no longer reflects the business. Your services, positioning or clients have moved on, and the website describes the company you were.
• Visitors arrive but do not enquire. Traffic is reasonable, enquiries are thin, and nobody can say why.
• It is slow or awkward on a phone. Most visitors now judge you on a small screen first.
• Your team avoids updating it. Every change needs a developer, or risks breaking a layout.
• The technology is ageing. An unsupported theme, plugins without updates or a platform the supplier is phasing out.
• Accessibility gaps. Poor contrast, forms that cannot be used with a keyboard, missing text alternatives.

If two or three of these sound familiar, a new website design is probably worth considering. If only the look bothers you, a lighter refresh may be enough.

Refresh, redesign or rebuild?

Not every problem needs a full rebuild. Choosing the right level of change saves money and reduces risk.

The real risk: losing what already works

An established website quietly carries value that is easy to overlook. Pages that rank for searches that bring in clients. Links from directories, professional bodies and press articles pointing at specific addresses. Forms and phone numbers wired into your CRM or call tracking. Content that answers questions your clients actually ask.

A redesign that ignores these can see traffic and enquiries fall after launch, sometimes for months. Search engines treat changed URLs without redirects as missing pages. Links from other sites end in errors. A form that used to email the right person now goes nowhere.

None of this is inevitable. It simply needs to be planned before design starts, not discovered after launch.

We start with an audit of your current site

Before any design work, we review the existing website against our 10-point website score, from technical foundation and indexing through to trust, conversion and AI visibility. In practice that means:

• listing every indexed page and the searches and visitors it brings in;
• identifying the external links that matter and the pages they point to;
• checking which pages and forms generate enquiries;
• noting what to keep, improve, merge or retire.

This becomes the brief for the redesign, so decisions are based on evidence rather than taste. If you want this analysis as a standalone piece of work first, see our SEO audit.

Redirects, migration and launch

Every old URL that changes gets a permanent (301) redirect to its closest new equivalent. Google describes this process in its guidance on site moves with URL changes. We test the redirects on a staging version before launch.

At launch we check that the new site can be indexed, submit updated sitemaps, verify tracking and forms, and confirm that important pages respond correctly. In the weeks after, we monitor indexing, search performance and enquiries, and correct anything that slipped through. Some fluctuation in rankings after a large migration is normal; what matters is that the trend recovers and improves.

Redesigning the website and the brand together

Sometimes the website is not the real problem; the brand behind it is. If your positioning has shifted, your logo feels dated or your messaging no longer separates you from competitors, a website redesign on its own will only go so far.

A brand identity redesign does not have to mean starting from scratch. Often the strongest move is to keep what people recognise, such as a name, a colour or a mark, and sharpen everything around it. Doing brand and website in one project keeps the two consistent and avoids paying twice. See our approach to brand identity.

Redesigns for law firms, dental practices and hotels

Some sectors carry particular risks in a redesign:

• Law firm website redesign: practice-area pages often hold years of rankings, and regulatory information such as SRA transparency details must stay complete and easy to find.
• Dental website redesign: treatment pages need to stay accurate and in line with GDC guidance, and online booking must keep working throughout the switch.
• Hotel website redesign: the booking engine connection, rate display and room pages are the revenue; testing them thoroughly before launch is not optional.

Use the redesign to fix accessibility and privacy

A redesign is the most cost-effective moment to fix problems that are expensive to retrofit. We design and test against WCAG, which helps you meet the expectation under the Equality Act 2010 that service providers make reasonable adjustments for disabled people. We also review forms, analytics and cookies against UK GDPR and PECR, so consent and tracking are set up properly from the start. This is general guidance; check specific obligations with an adviser.

Our website redesign process

1. Strategy session: a paid, 50-minute conversation with the founder (£225 excl. VAT) about your goals and whether we fit.
2. Proposal: if we take the project on, a fixed scope and fixed price.
3. Audit and URL map: what the current site earns and where every page will go.
4. Structure, content and design: built on the audit, approved in stages.
5. Build, redirects and testing: on a staging site before anything goes live.
6. Launch and monitoring: close checks on indexing, traffic and enquiries.

Cost depends on the size of the site, how much content changes, whether the platform changes and how complex the migration is. We do not publish project prices or ranges. For the wider picture of building a new website, see our web design agency page, or custom web development if your platform needs replacing.