Website Redesign London

The basics

What is a website redesign?

A website redesign is the rebuilding of an existing website: a new look, a new structure and usually new underlying code, on the same web address. It is different from a refresh, which changes colours or images on the existing site, and different from a brand-new website, because there is history to protect.

That history is the part many redesigns get wrong. Your current site has pages that Google has indexed, that other websites link to and that customers have saved. A redesign that ignores them can wipe out years of search visibility in a week. Done properly, a redesign keeps all of that and gives it a better home.

Signs that your website needs a redesign

• It is hard to use on a phone. You have to pinch and zoom, or buttons are too small to tap.
• It is slow. Pages take more than two or three seconds to appear.
• It looks dated next to your competitors' sites.
• You cannot update it without paying someone, so it is out of date.
• Enquiries have fallen although the business is as good as ever.
• Your rankings have slipped and newer competitors appear above you.
• The browser shows "Not secure" because the site has no SSL certificate.
• It no longer describes your business: old services, old prices, old photos, an old address.
• It was built on a platform that has been abandoned or that your original developer no longer supports.

If two or three of these are true, a redesign will almost certainly pay for itself. If only one is, a smaller repair may do, and we will tell you so.

Redesign or repair?

Not every tired website needs rebuilding, and we would rather give you honest advice than sell you more than you need.

A repair makes sense when the structure is sound and the problems are specific: images that need compressing, a contact form that has stopped working, a few pages that need rewriting, or software that needs updating. This is quicker and cheaper.

A redesign makes sense when the problems come from the foundations: a layout that was never built for phones, a theme or system that cannot be made fast, a structure with every service squeezed onto one page, or a site so old that fixing it would cost more than replacing it. In those cases, patching only postpones the decision.

Send us your web address and we will look at it on a phone, check how it appears in Google and tell you plainly which you need.

How we protect your Google rankings

This is the most important part of any redesign, and the reason to use someone who understands search as well as design.

We record what you have

Before changing anything we list every page on your current site, its address, its title and how it performs in search. Where you have Google Search Console, we use its data to see which pages bring visitors and for which searches.

We keep what works

Pages that rank and bring enquiries keep their content and, wherever possible, their exact address. We improve the layout around them without disturbing what Google already values.

We redirect what moves

If a page address has to change, we set up a permanent redirect, known as a 301, from the old address to the new one. Visitors and search engines who follow an old link arrive at the right place, and the page's ranking strength is passed on.

We improve what is weak

Thin or duplicated pages are rewritten or merged. Services that shared a page get pages of their own. Titles, descriptions and headings are rewritten around the searches you want to appear for.

We check after launch

We submit the new sitemap to Google, test every redirect and watch Search Console for errors in the weeks after launch, so any problem is caught early.

What we change, and what we keep

A good redesign is not change for its own sake. These are the things we usually keep: your domain name, your logo and colours unless you want them refreshed, your best photographs, your reviews, and any text that is accurate and reads well.

These are the things we usually change: the layout, which becomes mobile-first; the navigation, which becomes simpler; the home page, which is rebuilt to say clearly what you do and where; the contact options, which become one tap away; the speed; and the structure of pages, so that each service and area can be found in search.

Moving to a better platform

A redesign is the natural time to leave a platform that no longer suits you. We regularly move websites from Wix, Squarespace, Weebly, GoDaddy's builder, old Joomla or Drupal sites and outdated custom systems. Depending on your needs, the new site may be built on WordPress, which lets you edit everything yourself, or as a fast, lightweight site that needs almost no maintenance.

For online shops, we can move products, customers and order history between platforms, for example from an old system to Shopify or WooCommerce. See our ecommerce website design page for more.

What a redesign can do for your business

We will not promise figures, because every business is different. What a well-made redesign reliably delivers is this. More of your visitors stay, because the page loads and makes sense on their phone. More of them get in touch, because the route to contact is obvious. Google can read the site more easily, which gives your pages a fairer chance in search. And you can keep the site up to date yourself, so it stays accurate.

If you want to build on that with ongoing work, our SEO services start from £89.99 a month.