Does my website need a redesign or rebuild?
There are several reasons a business may consider redesigning (or totally rebuilding) their website. These range from technical issues with the current site to look and feel and finally, the user experience and functionality. In this article, we look at some of the primary reasons that may lead you to consider a redesign of your website and the things to consider when redesigning.
Why redesign a website?
If you already have a website and it’s quite old (say 5+ years), you might be giving consideration to redesigning it or at the least, refreshing it.
Some of the most common reasons a website gets redesigned (including a total rebuild) are:
Technical
- The platform the site is built on is too old and no longer fully supported;
- Perhaps the site is not secure (http rather than https). This in itself is not a reason to redesign/rebuild but could be the impetus for considering a rebuild;
- The website is not mobile optimised.
Look and feel
- You’ve rebranded (and re-imaged) your business and your website now needs to reflect this new style/brand;
- The site looks like it was built 20 years ago;
- The site does not reflect the culture, personality and service of the business;
- Visitors to the site may be forming a very dim view of the capability of the site owner, given “they don’t even have a good website”.
Functionality
- The site is simply not easy to use;
- The navigation is not clear and does not flow;
- There is no, or minimal SEO on the site (again, not necessarily a reason to redesign but a solid precursor to considering a redesign/rebuild);
- Over many years, a lot of content has been added to the site and you now find there is substantial duplicate content or content that is no longer relevant or content that is simply incorrect;
- Over many years, you’ve added a lot of assets/media (images, videos and other content) to your site. These assets may not be performing optimally; either from a user experience aspect or they may be slowing down the loading time of your URL’s;
- You need to add more CTA (call to action) opportunities to drive more leads and conversions.
User experience
- User experience (and page experience) are now primary factors considered by Google when choosing how to rank your site;
- The “Google page experience algorithm” rolled out in June 2021. Page experience is the latest search ranking benchmark that is going to be used by the major search engine, Google. This metric is all about determining how usable your website is. It’s more about technical fixes that, in turn, lead to customer experience and website performance;
- User experience/customer experience is also a key ranking indicator. You can learn more about what you may need to do with your website, to achieve optimal user experience in our blog, “Your digital customer experience – 6 critical factors”.
Redesign or rebuild?
You should ensure you have a solid handle on why you’re redesigning. It could be one or more of the above issues. The number and type of concerns you have with your current site will determine if you undertake a redesign or a total rebuild.
You may have a perfectly “functioning” site; simple to use, easy navigation, good content that addresses the user queries, and great SEO. But it might just be missing that sparkle; outdated images (or heaven forbid, no images), not matching your brand, no tagline etc. This could be perfectly suited to a redesign.
Alternatively, you may have a number of issues particularly related to an outdated CMS (eg, the platform your site is built on), no/limited SEO, poor navigation, little site visitation (meaning no leads/conversions) and so on. If this sounds like your site, you’re likely in the market for a total website rebuild.
A note of caution: your IT department is not the place to go to redesign or rebuild your website. IT departments, as terrific as they are at what they’re engaged to do, are not (usually) marketers.
If you want your investment in a redesign/rebuild to be optimised, we strongly recommend you engage an agency highly experienced in website development, including SEO.
How much does a redesign/rebuild of a website cost?
Eeks, that age old question; how long is a piece of string? And that age old answer, it depends.
Some factors that determine how much your website build will cost, include:
- The size of your site (how many separate pages/URL’s);
- What CMS you choose to build your site (eg, WIX – very cheap but you get what you pay for vs WordPress which starts with very affordable basic themes through to fully customised);
- The rates (usually associated with the expertise and experience) of the specific agency you choose to engage;
- Whether you use a basic template or a fully customised site;
- The costs associated with the media (images, videos etc) you will have on your site;
- and more.
There are many agency sites touting the costs associated with building a site and they all differ (quite a bit). For example, WebFX (US pricing) suggest it could be anywhere from $12,000 to $150,000. Really, what can you do with that assessment?
At Social Hive, we provide a fixed price quote for rebuilding or building from scratch. We do this after liaising with you and coming up with a scope of what you’re looking to achieve and what we recommend you need for optimal performance.
You should always try and find an agency that provides a fixed quote. Of course, if you change the scope during the build period, that fee may change too. But with us, we’ll always talk with you about any cost changes before proceeding.
We work with only smaller to medium-sized law firms in Australia and our aim is to provide an affordable solution. Our website builds (this is the technical build component only) to date (as of May 2022) have ranged from $3,000 to $12,000. Some of these have had pro-bono components.
Our SEO services are in addition to the technical build of the site and can range from about $2,500 to about $5,000, depending on the size of the site.
How long does a redesign/rebuild of a website take?
Website rebuilds or new builds should not be rushed. Speed rarely wins over quality.
Time and energy must be invested into:
- what you want to achieve with your site (information sharing only, leads, conversions etc);
- how you want it to look and feel (for example, using concept drawings);
- how big (how many pages/URL’s) you’re looking to start with;
- how many levels of navigation you need;
- whether you’ll be including video content;
- will there be a chatbot;
- will there be online forms;
- are you looking to integrate with third-party platforms;
- and more.
At Social Hive, we ordinarily tell our clients that the build phase is 10-12 weeks. This is also dependent on the speed with which the client provides necessary content along the way.
There are occasions where we can provide this service in under 10 weeks (urgent cases), but this is rare.
Looking to build or rebuild your website?
It costs you nothing to find out more detail about your options; whether to rebuild, refresh or completely build from scratch.
We take the time to get to know you and your firm and what you want to achieve. That may take an hour or two in the beginning but it’s our philosophy to be thorough from the beginning and 100% transparent about the service you’ll get and the price you’ll pay.
If, after that initial conversation (and sometimes a few conversations and/or emails) it’s not for you, we’ll happily thank you for at least considering us and wish you well with your endeavours.
Contacting Social Hive
Find this article useful or interesting?
You may also like to read:
Share this page...