In our experience, most small business websites don't fail overnight. They drift. The prices go out of date, the photos start to look tired, and one day you open the site on your phone and have to pinch and zoom just to find your own phone number. At that point the question is usually the same: do we tidy up what's there, or start again?
There's no single right answer, but there is a sensible way to work it out. Here's how we'd approach it.
What we mean by a refresh
A refresh keeps the substance of your current site and gives it a new home. Your wording, photos and page structure come across, get tidied up, and are rebuilt in a modern design that works properly on a phone. Think of it as moving the furniture into a better-built house rather than buying all new furniture.
A refresh suits a business whose site still says the right things but says them badly. A family-run café with a decent menu and a nice story about how it started doesn't need new words. It needs those words to be readable on a phone, with opening hours that are easy to spot and a map that actually loads.
What we mean by a rebuild
A rebuild starts from a blank page. You rethink what the site is for, which pages it needs and what each one should say. It takes more thought on your side, because the content has to be written or gathered afresh, but you end up with something shaped around the business as it is now.
Rebuilds make sense when the business has changed more than the website has. A plumber who started out doing emergency call-outs and now mostly fits bathrooms will find that an old site sends the wrong customers their way, however nicely it's redesigned.
Signs a refresh is probably enough
- Customers who find you online already know what you do and how to reach you, but the site looks dated next to your competitors.
- The text is mostly accurate and only needs updating in places, such as prices, opening hours or staff.
- The pages you have are the pages you need, even if one or two could be merged.
- The main complaints are practical ones: it's slow, it's awkward on a phone, or the contact form doesn't seem to work.
Signs you need a rebuild
- Your services, prices or type of customer have changed and the site no longer reflects them.
- You find yourself explaining things on the phone that the website should already answer.
- Pages have been bolted on over the years and nobody, including you, can find anything.
- The site was built on a platform you can't log into any more, or by someone you can no longer reach.
- You don't have a website at all, only a Facebook or Instagram page.
Five questions to ask yourself
Before deciding, sit down with your current site open on your phone and answer these honestly.
- If a new customer read only my home page, would they know what I do, where I do it and how to get in touch?
- Is anything on the site wrong today? Note it down, whether it's an old price, a closed branch or a member of staff who left.
- Which pages do people actually ask me about, and which could disappear without anyone noticing?
- Do I still have the logins for my domain name and hosting? If not, finding them is the first job either way.
- Do I want to change how customers contact me, for example by adding a booking button for a tool I already use?
If most of your answers are about presentation, a refresh is likely to cover it. If they keep coming back to what the business does and who it's for, you're looking at a rebuild.
Two worked examples
A hair salon has a site with a clear price list and a gallery its owner is proud of, but the layout breaks on a phone and the booking link is buried at the bottom of the page. That's a refresh: same content, better presentation, with the booking button moved to where people look for it.
An electrician's site was put together years ago by a relative. It lists services the business stopped offering, has no mention of the area covered and still shows a landline that's been disconnected. The content needs rethinking, so this is a rebuild.
What about cost?
A refresh usually costs less, simply because there's less to write and plan. But the cheaper option isn't automatically the better one. A nicer-looking version of a site that sends the wrong message will need redoing before long, so get the decision right first.
For reference, at WebFresh Studio a one-page refresh starts from £245 and a one-page new website from £295, with fixed prices agreed before any work begins.
If you're still not sure
Plenty of sites sit somewhere in the middle, and that's fine. A good web designer should be happy to look at what you have and tell you plainly which route makes sense, even if the answer is the smaller job. If you'd like a second opinion, send your current site to [email protected] or have a look at webfreshstudio.com.