This article originally announced a 2018 promotion, which has since ended. It has been rewritten as a general guide. For current pricing, see our web design services.
Most business owners know when their website is past it — they just aren’t sure whether it justifies the spend. Here are the four signs that usually mean it does.
1. It Creates the Wrong First Impression
For most prospects, your website is the first interaction they have with your business, and they form a judgement in seconds. A site that looks like it was built a decade ago suggests a business that stopped paying attention — fairly or not.
This matters most when you are competing against newer businesses. They may have far less experience than you, but if their site looks current and yours doesn’t, the prospect has no way of knowing that.
2. It Doesn’t Work Properly on a Phone
More than half of all web traffic is mobile, and for local service businesses it is often considerably higher. Google also indexes the mobile version of your site first, so a poor mobile experience is a ranking problem as well as a usability one.
Open your own site on your phone. If you are pinching to zoom, tapping buttons that are too small, or waiting more than a few seconds for it to load, your visitors are doing the same — and most of them are leaving.
3. The Phone Isn’t Ringing
The point of a website is enquiries. If traffic is steady but enquiries are not, the problem is usually the site rather than the marketing: the contact path is unclear, the forms are awkward, or nothing on the page tells a visitor why to choose you over the next result.
This is worth checking before you spend more on advertising. Sending more traffic to a site that doesn’t convert is an expensive way to discover the same problem.
4. The Technology Has Aged Out
Websites are software, and software ages. Older sites accumulate real problems: plugins no longer maintained, layouts that break in current browsers, missing security updates, and page speeds that modern hosting would halve.
If your site is more than four or five years old and hasn’t been actively maintained, it is likely carrying several of these at once.
What a Redesign Should Include
- A design built around your actual customers and the enquiries you want
- Mobile-first layouts, tested on real devices
- Sensible on-page SEO from the start, not bolted on afterwards
- Fast hosting with backups and SSL
- URLs preserved, or redirected, so you keep the search equity you have earned
- Content you can edit yourself afterwards
What It Costs
Websites start at $1,490 +GST for a single-page site and $2,950 +GST for a template-based startup site. Most business redesigns land between $4,500 and $7,950 +GST, and e-commerce rebuilds start at $9,990 +GST. Every quote is fixed before work begins.
Most sites are delivered in three to four weeks once we have your content.
Not Sure Whether You Need One?
Sometimes the answer is no. A site that is structurally sound may only need a content refresh, better hosting, or a care plan to bring it back up to speed. We will tell you if that is the case.
Get in touch for an honest assessment, or see our web design services for what a rebuild involves.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a website redesign cost?
Websites start at $1,490 +GST for a single-page site and $2,950 +GST for a template-based startup site. Most business redesigns land between $4,500 and $7,950 +GST depending on page count and how much custom design is involved, and e-commerce rebuilds start at $9,990 +GST.
How often should a website be redesigned?
Every four to five years for most businesses, though a well-built site kept up to date can go longer. The trigger is rarely age itself — it is when the site stops matching how the business works, or stops performing on the devices people actually use.
Can you redesign my site without changing my URLs?
Yes, and generally you should. Keeping URLs preserves the search ranking and inbound links each page has accumulated. Where a URL genuinely has to change, a 301 redirect passes that value to the new address.
How long does a redesign take?
Most redesigns are delivered in three to four weeks from the point we have your content. The biggest factor in hitting that is how quickly copy, images and feedback come back to us.
Will a redesign hurt my Google rankings?
Not if it is planned properly. Rankings suffer when URLs change without redirects, when content is cut without replacement, or when the new site is slower than the old one. Handled carefully, a redesign usually improves rankings because speed and mobile experience both improve.
