The short answer: when your website is costing you more clients than it generates. But the signals are often subtler — here's how to spot them and what taking action really means.
The signals that don't lie
A site can be technically functional and yet commercially obsolete. Watch for these indicators:
- Outdated design: visitors judge a site's credibility in seconds. A design that's five or more years old directly damages trust.
- Slow loading: every extra second of load time drives away a significant share of visitors — and Google penalises it too.
- Not mobile-friendly: over 60% of web traffic is mobile. A non-responsive site loses the majority of its visitors before they even read a line.
- No conversions: people arrive, browse, leave. No form submitted, no call made, no sale. The site informs but doesn't persuade.
- Invisible on Google: if your site doesn't show up for your potential clients' searches, it simply doesn't exist for them.
- Impossible to update: if adding a page or changing a line of text takes an hour or needs a developer, you'll inevitably let it stagnate.
- Change of positioning or brand: a new service, a new audience, a rebrand — your site must reflect who you are today, not who you were three years ago.
Redesign vs new site: what's the difference?
A redesign starts from what already exists: you keep the content that performs, restructure what doesn't work, and modernise the design. It's different from building from scratch (new business, new domain). A redesign leverages your domain's history and accumulated SEO — provided you don't destroy it during the migration.
What a proper redesign involves
A serious redesign isn't a facelift. It goes through several stages:
- Audit: analysing what works (converting pages, ranking keywords, earned backlinks) so you don't throw out the good with the bad.
- Content: restructuring the sitemap, rewriting what needs it, creating missing pages.
- Design: wireframes, visual identity, mobile-first UX.
- Development: integration, performance, accessibility.
- Migration and testing: the most critical phase, often underestimated.
The crucial point: protecting your SEO during migration
This is where many redesigns go wrong. If you change your URLs without a 301 redirect plan, Google loses track of your pages and your organic traffic can collapse — sometimes by 40 to 70% — while everything gets re-indexed, if it ever does. Best practice is clear: map all existing URLs before you start, identify which ones drive traffic or carry backlinks, keep high-performing URLs wherever possible, and for those you can't keep, set up systematic 301 redirects. It's rigorous work that must be planned upfront, not scrambled together on launch day. Our SEO service covers this in detail.
How much does it cost and how long does it take?
For a 10–20-page website, plan for 6 to 12 weeks of work and a budget ranging from a few thousand euros for a straightforward project to significantly more for complex sites with advanced features. The main variable: how much content needs to be created and how complex the functionality is. A real project speaks louder than a pitch — browse our work to get a concrete sense of what we deliver.
Where to start?
First, honestly list what's not working on your current site: traffic, bounce rate, load time (measurable for free with Google PageSpeed Insights), and any feedback you've had from clients or prospects. If you tick three or more signals from the list above, the question is no longer whether to redesign, but when — and with whom. Our team can run a quick diagnostic of your site before any budget conversation even starts. Get in touch and we'll take a look together.