RedesignorRefresh?HowtoTellWhichOneYouNeed

Roughly half our work is redesigns. A decent share of the conversations that start as a redesign should end as a refresh, and a few should end with us telling someone not to spend the money at all.

The short answer

You need a refresh when specific parts aren't working but the foundation is sound: the structure makes sense, the site has traffic, and something on it is already producing leads or sales. A refresh is a lighter push on the parts that are failing.

You need a full redesign when there's no visual consistency to build on, the site isn't ranking, and traffic is negligible. At that point there isn't much worth preserving, and rebuilding can be cheaper than repairing.

The test is simple: what on this site is currently working? Based on that, you'll often know intuitively.

What does a website refresh actually cover?

A refresh keeps the structure and the platform. It changes the visual layer, tightens the copy on the pages that matter, and fixes the specific things that are underperforming. Sometimes that's the homepage and three service pages and nothing else.

It's the cheaper option by a wide margin, and it's faster, which matters. We publish our ranges for both, but the short version is that a refresh is a fraction of a rebuild.

The catch is that a refresh can only fix what's fixable in place. If the reason the site fails is that nobody can find it, or that its structure doesn't match how people actually look for what you sell, restyling it won't help.

What does a full website redesign cover?

A redesign changes the structure, the story, or the platform, usually all three. It starts with discovery, which sounds like agency filler and isn't: it's the part where you work out what the site is actually supposed to do before anyone opens a design tool.

If the brand needs work, that goes first, because you can't lay a good site on top of an unresolved identity. Then content, sitemap and wireframes. Then visual design, which we build alongside the actual front end rather than handing over flat desktop and mobile files, because you learn different things when you can touch it and see how it moves.

Signals that point to a refresh

• The site brings in leads, just fewer than you want
• A few pages rank and earn traffic you'd be sorry to lose
• The structure is sensible; it just looks dated or inconsistent
• One or two pages are clearly the problem and you know which
• Your team can edit the site without calling anyone

Signals that point to a redesign

• Barely any organic traffic, and nothing ranking worth protecting
• No visual consistency, because it was assembled in pieces over years
• You can't edit it. This one comes up constantly: a previous agency or freelancer built something nobody on your team can change, so the site quietly froze
• The business has changed and the site describes the old one
• It doesn't work properly on a phone. Not "isn't ideal on a phone"
• Your sales team doesn't send prospects to it

When we tell people not to do either

We've told clients their site was fine. It was producing the leads they needed, or the sales they needed, and the only real complaint was that someone had gone off the colour.

You can absolutely change it. But be clear that's what you're doing. If the site works and you simply want to present yourself differently, that's a branding question, and it's a different, usually smaller project than a website rebuild. Don't redesign a working website for fun.

The other case is a site with no traffic at all. A redesign will not fix that on its own. If nobody is arriving, the problem is distribution and findability, and redesigning the thing nobody visits is an expensive way to feel productive.

Before you pick either one

If you're on your second or third attempt, work out why the last one didn't land before you commission the next one. A redesign is not throwing money at a different person. Some of what you already spent is sunk, and the useful move is understanding what went wrong rather than hoping a new set of hands produces a different result.

Nine times out of ten the answer is that nobody defined what the site was supposed to do, which is a problem no amount of visual work solves. We've written about that at length.

Then write one sentence: we're changing this site because ___, and we'll know it worked when ___. If you can't finish it, you're not ready to brief anyone.

Not sure which one you need?

Send us the site. We'll look at what it's doing now and tell you honestly whether it needs a rebuild or a targeted fix, including when the answer is that it's already working. See how we approach a website redesign.