Seven signs your website needs a relaunch (and two signs it doesn't)
How to tell whether your website needs a full relaunch or just a few fixes. Seven honest warning signs from a web designer, and two common reasons to rebuild that usually aren't good enough.
A relaunch is a big decision. It costs money, it takes a few weeks of your attention, and done badly it can lose the search rankings you built up over years. So before you rebuild, it's worth checking whether you actually need to. Here is how I'd tell.
Signs it's time
1. You're embarrassed to send the link. If you add "the website is a bit old, ignore that" when you share it, your website is working against you in every conversation.
2. It's painful on a phone. Tiny text, buttons too close together, sideways scrolling, a menu that doesn't open. Most of your visitors are on a phone, and they don't zoom, they leave.
3. You can't change anything yourself. Every new photo or opening-hours update means an email to someone and a wait. A website you can't edit goes stale, and stale looks like closed.
4. It's slow. If the first screen takes more than a few seconds to appear on mobile data, you're losing people before they've seen anything.
5. It describes a business you no longer are. New services, new prices, a new focus, but the site still tells the story from five years ago.
6. Nobody is updating the system behind it. Old WordPress installations with plugins nobody maintains are a security risk, not just a design problem.
7. It doesn't lead anywhere. People arrive, read, and there's no clear next step. No obvious way to call, book or ask.
A website you can't edit goes stale, and stale looks like closed.
Signs it isn't
You're just bored of it. You see your website every day, your customers see it once. Boredom is not a reason to spend money. If it works, loads fast and looks clean, a refresh of photos and texts might be all it needs.
A competitor just relaunched. Their new site doesn't change what your customers need from yours. Look at your numbers and your customer questions, not their homepage.
Relaunch or refresh?
If you recognise two or three of the warning signs, a refresh might do: new photos, rewritten texts, a fixed mobile menu, faster images. If you recognise four or more, or number six on its own, a proper relaunch usually costs less in the long run than patching.
Don't lose what already works
A relaunch should never cost you your search traffic. Keep the pages that bring visitors, redirect old addresses to new ones, and keep the texts that rank unless they're wrong. That part is unglamorous and it's where many relaunches go wrong.
If you're not sure which camp you're in, send me the link. I'll tell you honestly, even if the answer is "change the photos and keep the rest".