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Updating your website: when is it time and how do you approach a redesign?
Your website no longer feels like your business. Your services have changed, the CMS mostly costs your team time, and customers keep asking questions your website should already have answered. That's reason enough to take a closer look.
A complete redesign isn't always the best answer, though. Often, you can improve your existing website step by step. Think of an unclear service page, a cumbersome form or content that's no longer accurate. First work out what's getting in the way, before deciding to rebuild everything.
Start with problems you can identify
Ask sales which misunderstandings they keep having to clear up. Ask marketing where managing the site gets difficult. Look at the pages people use and the information that's still missing. That gives you a concrete picture of what needs to improve and whether you really need a new website to do it.
“The website is confusing” is a starting point, but it isn't a brief yet. “Visitors don't understand the difference between our services and end up asking for the wrong thing” gives you something to work with.
Then decide what should improve: clearer choices, less time spent managing content or more relevant enquiries. That gives you a way to assess the design beyond whether you like how it looks.
Decide what to keep
An old website can still have plenty of good parts. Pages that people find through search, clear explanations, good photography or a recognisable look. It would be a shame to remake all of that without first checking what's still useful.
Decide whether to keep, rewrite, merge or remove each page. Assign someone to take responsibility for the content, too. Use search data and customer questions, but don't immediately write off a page with little traffic. It might be useful in sales conversations.
Keep sensible URLs wherever possible. If an address changes, include an appropriate redirect. Moving to a different platform as well? Our WordPress to Webflow migration plan explains what else you need to consider.
A redesign or gradual improvements?
If the foundations are sound and the CMS is still comfortable to work with, I'd look at targeted improvements first. Update your most important service page, make the form clearer or improve the navigation. You don't have to wait for a new website to do those things.
Choose an improvement, agree on the problem it should solve and then see what changes. Do visitors understand your offer better? Are you getting more relevant enquiries? Use that to decide the next step. You can keep improving a little at a time.
A redesign becomes more worthwhile when the problems keep appearing across the site: the structure no longer fits, your branding doesn't come through or managing the site makes every change difficult. Even then, we work out what the first version needs and what can wait. The next steps help you organise that process.
Who decides what?
Agree on who collects feedback and who makes the final decisions. Bring in the right colleagues for their expertise. You don't need to run every piece of copy past everyone.
Plan points at which you'll review the structure, concept, designs and completed website. Keep referring back to the goals you've agreed on. “I think this looks better” can be useful feedback, but explain what you think it improves, too.
New ideas will come up anyway. Make it clear from the start how you'll weigh them against the budget and schedule. That leaves room to improve things without every change turning the whole project upside down.
Develop the content and design together
A design filled with placeholder copy can look great. Until you try to fit in your actual service description, discover that the case study has little evidence to offer or realise that the form needs more explanation. You'd rather find that out earlier.
Work with real, representative content early on. Start with the most important pages and use them to design components you can reuse. Let your team try adding new content as well.
For me, that's part of a good handover. The website should remain easy to work with afterwards. Clear fields, training and someone responsible for the content make a difference.
Prepare for launch and what comes next
Before launch, check visitor journeys, mobile pages, forms, links, SEO settings and tracking. Agree on who checks what and choose a launch time when the people involved will be available.
Record how the current site performs, too. After launch, look at enquiries, important pages and how the CMS works for your team. You won't see every effect immediately, but you do want to know which improvement to tackle next.
Not sure whether you need a redesign? Let us take a look at your website. We can look at what you're struggling with and whether targeted improvements could solve it, or whether a new foundation would be more useful. If a new website is the right next step, BORING's usual project budget is between €15,000 and €30,000. For ongoing optimisation, we look at the changes needed and the work they involve.
