Website redesign: when you need one, what it costs and how to keep your visitors

A redesign can go wrong over the budget, or on launch day. On launch day every page that changes its address leaves a dead link behind, and anyone who arrives from Google at the old address finds an error page.

Both can be planned for. Start by deciding how much of the site has to change.

Does my website need a redesign?

It does when three or more of these are true:

• Enquiries from the site have dropped, while your services and prices haven’t changed.
• It’s hard work on a phone. Open it on yours and do what a customer does: find a service, then call you. If that takes too many taps, the structure is the problem.
• It’s slow. Google counts a page as good when its main content appears within 2.5 seconds and it responds to a tap within 200 milliseconds, with nothing jumping as it loads. It has to pass in at least three visits out of four (web.dev). Test yours for free on PageSpeed Insights.
• You can’t change a text or a photo without calling someone, or paying for it.
• The platform no longer gets updates, or its theme and plugins don’t.
• The business has moved on. New services, a new market or a new logo, and the site still shows the old ones.

With one or two, fix those and keep the site. With none, leave the design alone: a site that loads fast, works on a phone and brings enquiries gains more from fresh content.

Refresh or rebuild: how much has to change?

A redesign comes in three sizes:

• A refresh keeps the structure and the content, and renews what people see, from the typefaces to the photos. It suits a site that works and looks dated.
• A partial redesign redoes the pages that let you down, often the service pages and the contact page, and leaves the rest as it is.
• A rebuild starts again from the foundations, with a new structure and often a new platform. It suits a site that fails the phone test or that nobody can update, and it’s the moment to rethink what buyers check first.

Whichever you choose, keep what your customers already recognise, such as the logo, the colours and the photos that work.

How much does a website redesign cost in the UK?

For a small business, a few thousand pounds. A rebuild is priced like a new site, so the figures for new sites apply. Two UK sources, as I found them in October 2026:

• Whito, which gathers the rates UK freelancers and agencies publish, last checked its figures on 19 October 2026. Most small businesses pay £3,000 to £6,000 for a professionally built site. A five-page brochure site costs £1,500 to £3,000 from a freelancer and £3,000 to £5,000 from an agency. Copywriting, photos and SEO usually add 30 to 50% on top (Whito).
• SpotDev, a HubSpot agency in Bath, gives the upper end on 22 May 2026: smaller redesigns from around £10,000, a standard build on HubSpot £15,000 to £30,000, both before VAT (SpotDev).

What moves the price:

• How many page types are designed. A service page designed once serves every service.
• Copy and photos, ready or made for you. Whito puts copywriting at £50 to £150 a page.
• A change of platform, with every page and image to move across.
• Features such as bookings, a shop or a link to your CRM.
• How many old addresses have to be mapped and redirected.

That’s why a refresh costs the least: fewer page types are designed again, and the content stays. To read a quote line by line, and to see what you should own at the end, there’s a separate guide on bespoke website quotes.

For the meeting with your partners, set the quote against what the old site already costs you: the enquiries it doesn’t bring, and the bill for every change you can’t make yourself.

If you’d like to see the new direction before you sign for the whole job, I make a fixed-price prototype for €450, no VAT added. It’s a working piece of the new site, such as the home page and one service page, and if we go ahead within sixty days it comes off the quote in full. I’m based in Italy, so my prices are in euros.

How long does a website redesign take?

On a small site, mostly as long as the content takes. SpotDev puts a standard build on HubSpot at 12 to 14 weeks, and moving a business site of 50 to 200 pages onto HubSpot, with no redesign, at four to eight. A refresh of a few pages takes less.

The delays that cost the most usually start on the client’s side, and each has a fix:

• The copy and photos arrive late. Before design starts, agree who delivers what, and by when.
• Too many people sign off. One person approves, and the others send their comments through them.
• New requests arrive halfway. Write each one down with its price, then decide together whether it waits until after launch.

On the first call I give you a date, and you’ll find it written in the quote.

What are the steps, and what do I prepare?

From the first call to the weeks after launch:

1. Goals and starting numbers. What should the site bring you more of: calls, enquiries, bookings? Note how many it brings in a month today, and the clicks from Google. Then try three competitors’ sites as a customer: find the service, ask for a quote, count the taps. You bring the numbers.
2. Access. Domain, hosting, the site’s admin, Search Console and Google Analytics. You bring the logins, or the name of whoever holds them.
3. What already works. The pages that bring visitors from Google, and the sites that link to you (more on both below).
4. Content. A list of every page, with what stays, what goes and what’s new. You bring the copy and photos, or the budget to have them made.
5. Design. The key page first, then the others. You bring the one person who signs off.
6. Build. First a full backup of the old site. Then the new one goes up on a private copy behind a password, out of Google’s sight until launch.
7. Tests. Every page on a phone and with the keyboard alone, the contact form, every redirect.
8. Launch, with the checks further down.
9. The weeks after. The new numbers, set against the ones from step 1.

How do I keep my Google traffic?

Give every old address a new one. Google has a whole page on how to move a site (Google Search Central), and for a redesign it comes down to three jobs.

Find what already works

Open Google Search Console and go to Performance, then Search results. The Pages tab shows which addresses get clicks from Google, and the Queries tab for which searches. Export the list. In the redesign those pages keep their content, or get better content on the same topic.

If nobody has added your site to Search Console, add it today. It starts collecting data the day someone adds the site, even before it’s verified (Search Console Help), so every week before launch counts.

If the site has been around for years, look at how it used to be, too. Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine keeps past versions of many sites, and sometimes you find pages that brought visitors before someone took them down.

Save the list of sites that link to your pages as well. You’ll find it in Search Console, in the Links report. Once the move has started, Google suggests asking those sites to update their links, beginning with the ones that send you the most visits. The links you control, from your social profiles to your ad campaigns, are yours to update.

Draw up the redirect map

A spreadsheet with a row for every address of the old site, and these columns:

• the old address;
• the new address that takes its place (none left empty);
• the clicks it gets from Google, so the busiest rows are checked first;
• tested, yes or no.

The new page in each row covers the same topic as the old one. Sending every old address to the home page looks like a shortcut, but Google advises against it, because it confuses visitors and may be treated as a page that doesn’t exist. The exception is when you’ve merged several pages into one: then all their old addresses can lead there.

Set up the redirects

Google asks for permanent redirects, 301 or 308, kept for as long as possible and generally at least a year. Each one should lead straight to the final page or, where that isn’t possible, ideally take no more than three steps to get there.

Whoever builds the new site sets them up on the server. On WordPress, the free Redirection plugin can import the whole map from a spreadsheet saved as a CSV file.

Then give it time. Google expects a small or medium-sized site to take a few weeks before most of its pages have moved to their new addresses.

What do I check on launch day?

On Google’s side, from its guidance on site moves:

• Internal links point to the new addresses, without going through the redirects.
• The new sitemap is submitted in Search Console.
• The redirects work. Test the busiest ones with Search Console’s URL Inspection tool, and ask whoever built the site to check the whole list.
• Google can get in. A site in development is often hidden from search engines, so check it’s open again. On WordPress, the “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” box under Settings, Reading must be unticked (WordPress).
• If you change domain, you also send a change of address in Search Console. A site that stays on the same domain doesn’t need it.

On your customers’ side:

• Send yourself an enquiry from the contact form, and check it reaches the inbox.
• Tap the phone number on a phone, and check it calls.
• Your analytics records the visit, and the cookie banner works as it did on the old site. If you’ve changed analytics tool, check it against the ICO’s guidance on cookies, finalised on 29 April 2026 after the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025.
• An old address missing from the map opens an error page with your menu and a way to contact you.

What do I watch in the weeks after launch?

The numbers you saved in step 1. Once a week, set the enquiries from the form, the calls and the clicks from Google against them, until the visits from Google settle.

In Search Console, every old address Google finds with an error is a row missing from your map. Add it to the map, and redirect it.

Does the new site have to be accessible?

Public bodies must meet the WCAG 2.2 AA standard. For everyone else, GOV.UK points out that every UK service provider has to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people under the Equality Act 2010 (GOV.UK, updated 30 September 2024).

A redesign is the moment to build that in: text that stands out from its background, every page usable with a keyboard, a short description on images that carry meaning. Before launch, run the key pages through WAVE, WebAIM’s free accessibility checker.

Should I do it myself, or hire a freelancer or an agency?

It depends on the size of the job, and on how many of your own hours you can give it:

• You, on a site builder such as Wix or Squarespace, for £10 to £50 a month by Whito’s count, plus your time. It works for a few pages, and moving the content and setting up the redirects are up to you.
• A freelancer gives you one person to talk to, at the lower end of Whito’s figures. Ask who covers when they’re ill or away.
• An agency puts more people on the job, each looking after a piece, at the higher end.

Before you sign, ask:

• How many rounds of changes are included, and what does an extra one cost?
• Who writes the copy, and who supplies the photos?
• Is the redirect map in the quote, and who tests it?
• Who keeps a backup of the old site, and when is the old hosting cancelled?
• Who fixes what breaks in the first month after launch?

How often should I redesign my website?

When the signs say so. Agencies often quote every two to three years, as Infinity, a US agency, did in July 2025. A site that still brings enquiries and passes the phone test can go longer with fresh content. One that fails three of the checks above is due, whatever its age.