Website redesign vs new website: refresh, redesign or rebuild?

Two quotes for “a redesign”, a “revamp” or “a new website” can describe very different jobs. Before you compare prices, pin down which of the three you are being offered.

"Revamp" has no fixed meaning. In our experience it usually means a refresh or a redesign, rarely a full rebuild, so ask which one the quote covers.

For most small businesses a “new website” and a “rebuild” mean the same thing.

Start with what is wrong with the site. Its age tells you much less.

• Signs a refresh is enough: it is quick on a phone, people find it on Google, and enquiries come in. It just looks dated, or your photos and branding have moved on.
• Signs you need a redesign: visitors leave without calling; your services, prices or areas have changed; you have rebranded, renamed or changed what the business does; customers ask questions the site should answer; or the site talks about you and skips what the customer needs to know. A new name often means a new domain too, which is a site move: follow the checklist below.
• Signs you need a rebuild: it is slow on a phone; it was built on a theme or plugin that is no longer supported; nobody can edit it without breaking something; it is locked into a platform you want to leave; or fixing it piece by piece would cost more than starting again.

Before choosing, write down what the site must do that it does not do now. “Look more modern” is a refresh brief. “Get more people to ring about boiler installs” is a redesign brief. “Let me add a page without breaking the layout” can be a rebuild brief.

If you cannot tell which list you are on, a free Growth Audit looks at the site the way a customer would, then the way a search engine does.

In our experience, a small business site left untouched for five years or more often needs a full rebuild. The reason is its foundations: themes and plugins that are no longer updated, layouts built before most visitors used phones, and code that slows every change down. Patching that can cost more than starting again, because each fix takes longer and can break something else. If an older site is still fast on a phone and easy to update, a redesign may be all it needs.

The platform matters too. Some builders tie your site to their servers. Wix, for example, says a Wix site has to be hosted and run on Wix’s servers. Wix has no way to export the site itself, so most words and photos are copied across by hand. Squarespace can export part of a site in a WordPress format: layout pages, one blog, text and image blocks, and gallery pages on older (7.0) sites. Store pages, page-specific headers, footers and sidebars, and style settings are left behind. So “moving off the builder” is a rebuild, and should be quoted as one.

Coltura’s Growth Website is a full rebuild at £1,400, which you own. If you would rather hand the whole job over, see our website redesign service. Our redesign cost guide and website costs explained compare the options.

In our experience, much of the search value a site has sits in its existing page addresses and the words on them. Google treats a change of addresses as a site move, and its own guide says to “expect temporary fluctuation in site ranking during the move”. For a small to medium-sized site it can take a few weeks for most pages to move. This website redesign checklist keeps that risk down. Steps marked (Google) come from that guide; the rest are our practice.

Before launch

1. List every page you have now, and note which bring visits and enquiries. Search Console and your analytics will show you.
2. Keep addresses that work. If /boiler-repairs-stockport earns visits, keep that exact address where you can.
3. Keep the copy on ranking pages. Improve it, but do not swap it wholesale for new wording: the words are part of why the page is found.
4. Carry over title tags and meta descriptions on ranking pages: the blue headline and short summary Google often shows for the page. Copy them across, then change them deliberately later.
5. Write a redirect map (Google). For every address that changes, write the old address and the new one it should point to.
6. Set up analytics and conversion tracking on the new site, so calls and form enquiries are counted from day one. Google suggests analysing both old and new sites.
7. Protect your email if the host changes. Write down the domain’s DNS settings, especially the email (MX) records, before anything moves, and make sure you can log in to the domain account yourself. Moving a website should not stop your email.

Launch day

1. Switch on the redirects (Google). A 301 redirect is a permanent forwarding address: anyone, or Google, asking for the old page is sent to the new one. Google recommends server-side permanent redirects, such as 301 or 308.
2. Remove the staging noindex and check robots.txt (Google). Sites are often hidden from search while being built; remove any noindex or robots.txt blocks that were only needed for the move.
3. Check canonicals (Google). Each page carries a hidden note naming its main address; on the new site it should name the page’s own new address.
4. Update internal links (Google) so they go straight to the new addresses without passing through a redirect.
5. Submit the new sitemap in Search Console (Google), and test a few old addresses to confirm they forward.

After launch

1. Check for 404s. Watch Search Console for a jump in “Not found” errors (Google) and redirect any old address that still earns visits.
2. Update the website link everywhere else: your Google Business Profile, directories and social profiles. Google suggests updating as many links as possible, including profile links.
3. Watch Search Console and your tracking for the following weeks: Page indexing, Sitemaps, and whether calls and forms are still being recorded. If pages drop out, our guide to why a website is not showing on Google walks through the checks.
4. Keep the redirects (Google) for as long as possible, generally at least a year. For visitors, Google suggests considering keeping them for good.

A made-up example to show the arithmetic. Say a plumber’s 15-page site is rebuilt, merging thin service pages and dropping an old news page.

Six redirects is a small job, but if the four merged pages had simply been deleted, any visits and links they had earned would have hit an error page.

Timelines vary with size and with how quickly content arrives. ExpertSure’s guide says a freelance small business site of 5 to 15 pages is typically delivered in 2 to 6 weeks, and agency builds typically take 8 to 16 weeks. Both are vendor estimates for the whole project.

How a Coltura rebuild runs. These are our own six stages. They do not compare directly with the ranges above, because our build time starts once the direction is agreed and your content is in.

1. Discovery, free, within 48 hours. A Growth Audit sets out what is costing you enquiries in writing, and one short conversation (about 30 minutes) covers whether a rebuild is the right spend for you right now.
2. Strategy, in week one. Before any design, we agree how the business is explained and which pages exist.
3. Design. The build begins once the direction is agreed and you have got us your content. You see the real site on a private link, with one round of considered changes.
4. Development, about 14 working days of build in all.
5. Testing, before go-live. Every form and phone link is tested, and every old page has its redirect ready.
6. Launch and ongoing support. The site goes live and we watch it for 30 days, fixing anything that does not work as built at no charge. After that, Growth Care is there if you want it.

14 working days is just under three weeks of build. What most often stretches a timeline is content that has not been gathered: your logo, photos of real work, reviews, prices or “from” figures, areas covered and accreditations. Coltura writes the copy, but those facts have to come from you. You can see past builds on our projects page.

A refresh, or simply some maintenance, is the right call when:

• Enquiries are steady and the problem is purely how it looks.
• The issue is out-of-date content: old prices, staff who have left, a service you have dropped. That is an afternoon of edits.
• Your site is on a builder such as Wix or Squarespace and you are comfortable in its editor. New photos, tidier wording and updated colours are a do-it-yourself refresh. If you would rather pay someone, see what web designers charge in the UK.
• The site is on a platform you are happy with and it is fast on a phone.
• You rank well for the searches that bring you work and do not want to risk any movement at all right now.

Most of the decision comes down to a few questions. Ask yourself the first three before you talk to anyone, and ask whoever quotes the rest.

1. Is the problem the look, the words or the foundations? That decides refresh, redesign or rebuild, as in the table at the top.
2. What must the site do that it does not do now? One sentence, such as “get more people to ring about boiler installs”.
3. Which pages bring visits and enquiries now? Search Console and your analytics will show you. Those are the pages to protect.
4. Which pages will change address, and where will each one redirect? Ask for the redirect map in writing.
5. Who owns the new site, the domain and the accounts? Our guide to who owns your website explains what to check.
6. Will the hosting change, and what will it cost each year? See what a website costs to run, and make sure your email will not be disrupted.
7. What happens if something breaks after launch, and for how long is it fixed at no charge?