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A website doesn’t break down overnight. It ages quietly: a page nobody dares touch any more, a contact form landing in an inbox nobody reads, an offer that has moved on while the site still describes the old one. Meanwhile, visitors compare, and they don’t warn you when they leave for a competitor.
A redesign isn’t an aesthetic whim. It touches your offer, your content, your SEO and your tools. Done well, it puts the site back to work for your business. Done badly, it can wipe out part of the visibility you’ve built up over the years. Before asking for quotes, you need to know exactly what’s wrong, and how the project should run.
The signs it’s time to act
Some signals are technical, others commercial. The commercial ones usually say the most: if your team hesitates before sending a prospect the link to your site, the diagnosis is already made.
- The site looks wrong on a phone or is slow to load
- Changing a sentence or a photo means calling in a supplier
- Your offer, prices or target market have moved on, the site hasn’t
- Enquiries are drying up, or arrive without the information you need
- The CMS, theme or plugins are no longer updated
- The site still shows your old visual identity
Full redesign or targeted fixes?
Not everything calls for starting from scratch. If the structure holds up, the platform is maintained and the problem comes down to dated copy or a contact page that doesn’t convert, targeted fixes will cost less and move faster.
A full redesign makes sense when the problems pile up: an outdated technical base, a site structure that no longer matches your services, a design out of step with the quality of your work. Stacking patches on top is then like repainting a façade while the foundations shift. So the real question isn’t whether you need a new website, but what’s stopping the current one from doing its job.
Start with an audit, not mock-ups
Before talking colours, find out what already works. Even an ageing site holds valuable information: the pages that attract traffic, the searches that bring you up on Google, the links other sites have given you, the journeys that lead to a quote request.
At LaBoîte, we cross-check this data with what happens on the ground. Your sales team knows which questions keep coming up. Your recent customers can tell you what won them over, and what nearly put them off.
- Visitor statistics and the main landing pages
- The queries and pages reported in Google Search Console
- The full list of addresses (URLs) on the current site
- The sites that link to yours
- The enquiries you receive, and where they come from
Define what the new site must achieve
A redesign goal is written with a verb and an audience. “Look more modern” isn’t one. “Get better-qualified quote requests from businesses” is, and it shapes everything else: the order of pages, the form fields, the proof you put forward.
This is also the moment to settle the practical questions. Who will update the site, and how often? Do you need online booking, a client area, an English version? Which content management system suits your team, rather than the agency? The answers make up most of the brief for your future website.
Protect your SEO during the migration
This is the step most often rushed, and the most expensive when it is. Every current page that gets visits or links needs a destination on the new site. Without that work, Google hits pages that no longer exist (404 errors) and the rankings you’ve earned fade away.
The principle is simple: a mapping table between old and new addresses, then permanent redirects (301s) live from launch day. Content that ranks well is kept or improved, never rewritten at random. It’s a full part of our SEO work.
- Crawl the old site and export all its URLs
- Match each URL to the closest new page
- Carry over the titles and descriptions of pages that rank
- Test the redirects on the staging version
- Submit the new sitemap in Search Console
- Monitor errors and rankings in the weeks that follow
Content: the real workload
Design gets signed off in a few meetings. Copy takes back-and-forth, internal decisions and material nobody has to hand: up-to-date references, recent photos, precise answers to customers’ questions. It’s almost always what delays a launch.
So start writing as soon as the site structure is approved, alongside the mock-ups. A design built around real copy avoids placeholder text that never gets replaced, and pages that ring hollow once they’re live.
The mistakes that derail a redesign
Most failed redesigns fail for organisational reasons, not technical ones. Many also forget that a site lives on after launch: decide from the outset who will track the statistics, who will publish, and how change requests will be handled.
- Choosing a design based on a competitor’s site, without asking your customers
- Forgetting the redirects and discovering the traffic drop afterwards
- Leaving the test site’s no-index instruction switched on
- Going live without testing the forms or conversion tracking
- Handing the project to a committee with no decision-maker
- A site that no longer brings in enquiries, or that you can no longer update, deserves an audit.
- Targeted fixes are sometimes enough; a redesign is justified when the problems pile up.
- Start from your existing data and a clear goal, not from mock-ups.
- A redirect plan protects your SEO: it’s prepared before launch.
- Start writing early: content is the longest part of the job.
Frequently asked questions
How long does a website redesign take?
It depends on the number of pages, how quickly content is available and how fast approvals come through. A simple business website moves much faster than a site with a catalogue, a client area or several languages. We set a timeline after the audit, once the scope is clear.
Will a redesign hurt my search rankings?
Not if the migration is prepared. Losses almost always come from URLs removed without a redirect, high-performing content rewritten carelessly, or a forgotten no-index instruction. With a redirect plan and monitoring after launch, a redesign can even become a chance to climb.
Should I change CMS as part of a redesign?
Not necessarily. If your current platform is maintained, your team uses it easily and it covers your needs, keeping it makes the migration simpler. An abandoned CMS, a version that no longer gets updates or a tool nobody knows how to use, on the other hand, are good reasons to switch.
We start with an audit of what you have: what works, what holds you back, what’s worth keeping. Then you decide how far to take it.
