Do I need a new website?

Each of these is a fault in the foundations.

• The site is slow after every reasonable fix, because the platform or theme is heavy.
• The site cannot be made to work properly on a phone.
• Adding or changing a page needs a developer, or cannot be done at all.
• The structure buries the pages customers search for, and cannot be rearranged.
• The platform cannot be moved, and no longer does what the business needs.
• The design makes the business look smaller or older than its competitors.

All four are common, and a repair solves each.

• The site is not found. Titles, content and links are the usual causes, and all can be changed on the existing site.
• The site gets visits and no enquiries. That is a page problem: the offer, the next step and the proof.
• The images are too heavy. Resizing them takes an afternoon.
• The content is out of date. Rewrite it.

Our guides to a website that is not ranking and a website that gets no enquiries cover the first two.

Measure before deciding. Test the speed of your main pages and of your competitors’. Check the site on a phone. Read in Search Console what it is found for. If the faults are in the list of four, repair. If they are in the list of six, a repair is money spent on a site that will still hold you back.

A new site that loses what the old one earned is a step backwards. Three things carry over.

• The addresses, or a redirect from each old one to its replacement.
• The content that brings visitors, with its subject and headings intact.
• The domain, and the accounts that hold your data.

Our guide to redesigning a website without losing rankings is the method, and how to choose a web design company covers who to trust with it.