Redesigning a Small Business Website

A small business website redesign usually starts with something practical, such as pages that look wrong on a phone, enquiries that have dried up or a business that has moved on from what the website describes. Done well, it keeps everything the old website was doing right and fixes the rest, which is the thinking behind good website redesigns for small businesses. The sections below cover the signs that a redesign is due, what to keep, what the work involves and what decides the cost.

Most small business owners redesign their website only a handful of times, so it is easy to treat the job as a change of look and forget the parts that customers and search engines rely on. Those parts are the page addresses, the content that already brings in visitors and the details that let people get in touch. Keeping them intact is what separates a redesign that brings in more work from one that quietly loses it.

Signs Your Small Business Website Needs Redesigning

The clearest sign that a website needs redesigning is that it no longer turns visitors into calls, messages and bookings. Age on its own is not a reason, since a plain website that loads quickly and answers customers’ questions can keep working for years, but some problems cannot be fixed with small edits.

Most of the warning signs fall into four groups. Each one is worth checking on your own phone before deciding anything, because that is how most customers will see the website for the first time.

Other signs are less obvious but just as telling. A website without the padlock in the browser bar, a contact form that has stopped sending emails or a design that no longer matches the signage and the vans all suggest the website has fallen behind the business it represents.

Falling enquiries are the sign owners notice last, because they build up slowly. If the phone rings less often while the business is just as busy through word of mouth, the website is a good place to start looking for the reason.

Deciding Between a Refresh and a Full Redesign

A refresh changes how the website looks and reads while keeping its structure, whereas a full redesign rebuilds the structure, the design and often the build underneath. The right choice comes down to whether the problems sit on the surface or in the way the website is put together.

The two approaches suit different situations. The comparison below sets out what each one changes and where each one tends to go wrong.

A refresh is rarely worth doing on a website that fails on a phone or cannot be edited, because the problem that matters most is left in place. A full redesign is the better route when the business has changed shape, the website has grown into a muddle of pages added over the years or the original build simply cannot do what customers now expect.

The same question applies to the design itself. Some businesses need a design created from scratch around a distinctive brand, while others are better served by a proven layout matched to their colours and filled with their own words and photos.

Work Out What the Current Website Does Well

Before changing anything, find out which pages bring in visitors and enquiries, because those are the pages a redesign has to protect. A website that looks dated can still have a handful of pages that rank well for local searches or a contact page that produces most of the week’s calls.

If Google Search Console was set up on the old website, its Search performance report shows how much traffic comes from Google Search, broken down by searches and pages. Analytics data from the old website adds the pages people visit before they get in touch, which shows which content does the selling.

Write down what to keep before any design work begins. A short list agreed at the start stops useful content disappearing simply because nobody thought to move it across.

• Pages that appear in search results and bring in visitors
• Customer reviews and testimonials, with permission to keep showing them
• Photos of real work, premises and the people behind the business
• Answers to the questions customers ask every week
• Contact details, opening hours and the areas the business covers
• Legal pages such as the privacy notice and cookie information

Content that is out of date can be rewritten rather than deleted, especially if the page already appears in search results. Updating a page at the same address keeps the links that other websites and search results already point to, whereas deleting it leaves those links going nowhere.

It also helps to ask a few regular customers what they use the website for. Their answers often show that one or two pages do most of the work, which tells you where the redesign should spend its effort.

Keep the Page Addresses That Already Work

Every page address that changes in a redesign needs a permanent redirect from the old address to the new one, otherwise visitors and search engines arrive at an error page. Google’s guidance on moving pages to new addresses recommends preparing a map from every current URL to its new equivalent, then redirecting the old URLs to the new ones when the move starts.

A permanent redirect, often called a 301, tells Google the page has moved for good and that the new address should be shown in search results. Google’s guidance on redirects recommends a permanent server side redirect whenever possible, because that type has the best chance of being interpreted correctly.

Google also expects rankings to fluctuate for a while after any significant change to a website, while it recrawls and reindexes the pages. That is normal, but a redesign without redirects turns a temporary wobble into a lasting loss, because the pages that earned the rankings no longer exist.

Links from elsewhere matter too. Directory listings, social media profiles, email signatures and printed material may all point at old page addresses, so check where the most important ones lead once the new website is live.

Where search brings in most of the enquiries, it is worth having SEO support during the move rather than treating redirects as an afterthought. The redirect map is a simple spreadsheet, but getting it right protects years of work that the old website did to earn its place in search results.

What a Small Business Website Redesign Involves

A small business website redesign follows the same basic stages whatever its size, from reviewing the current website through to checking the new one after launch. Smaller websites move through the stages faster, but skipping one usually causes problems later.

The order matters because each stage relies on decisions made in the one before. Content gathered late holds up the build, while a build started before the design is agreed tends to be done twice.

Content is the stage that slows most redesigns down. Gathering the words, photos, logo and reviews before work starts keeps the project moving, because the build cannot finish until every page has something to say.

Accessibility belongs in the design and build stages rather than after launch. Clear contrast, readable text sizes and forms that work with a keyboard help every visitor. Building them in from the start is far simpler than fixing accessibility problems on a finished website.

Good photography deserves a mention here as well. Real photos of finished work, the premises and the team tell customers far more than stock images, so it is worth taking new ones before the redesign starts if the current set looks dated.

Choosing Between a Ready Designed Website and a Bespoke Build

A ready designed website suits most small businesses that need a professional website quickly, while a bespoke build suits businesses with unusual features or a distinctive brand to express. Both can produce a good result, but they suit different budgets, timescales and levels of involvement.

A bespoke redesign starts from a blank page, with the structure, layout and features designed around the business. That route makes sense when the website needs bookings, online sales, links to other systems or a design no existing layout could deliver. Larger projects of that kind are what bespoke web design is for.

Priority Pixels Rapid Websites take the other route, so the design is not created from scratch. The business picks one of nine design styles from a library of finished example websites and the colours are matched to its brand.

Because every design is already built and tested, there is no design phase to pay for and the website is live within five working days of kick off. Each one has a layout that works on phones, tablets and computers, a contact form that sends every enquiry to the email address you choose and customer reviews on every page.

Google Analytics is installed at launch, which gives a business real numbers to compare the new website against the old one. The pages are chosen for the business rather than fixed, so a salon can have a price list and a builder can have a page of finished projects.

Example designs are worth looking at across every kind of business, not only your own, because a layout built for a café can suit a florist just as well. Get in touch to see the full library of example websites before deciding which route fits.

What Drives the Cost of a Website Redesign

The cost of a website redesign is driven by how much has to be designed, written, built and moved, rather than by the size of the business. Two businesses of the same size can need very different amounts of work, so it helps to understand what pushes the cost up before asking for quotes.

These are the factors that make the biggest difference to a website redesign cost. Each one is worth raising with every supplier, because quotes that look similar often cover different amounts of work.

• Whether the design is created from scratch or based on a finished design matched to the brand
• The number of pages and how many different page layouts they need
• Who writes the words and whether new photography is needed
• Features such as online booking, payments or links to other systems
• How many old pages need mapping and redirecting to new addresses
• What is included after launch, such as hosting, security and changes

Content is the factor owners most often underestimate. Writing clear service pages takes time. Someone has to spend that time, whether the business does the writing itself or pays for it.

Running costs matter as much as the build. Hosting, the security certificate, backups and the cost of making changes all continue after launch, so a quote that only covers the build tells only part of the story.

With a Rapid Website, the build and the monthly hosting are agreed up front and nothing is added along the way. Priority Pixels hosts and monitors the website on its own servers with a free SSL certificate that renews automatically, so there is nothing for the business to maintain.

Comparing quotes is easier when every supplier is asked the same questions. Ask what is included, who supplies the content, what happens to the old page addresses and how changes are charged once the website is live.

Legal Details to Check Before the New Website Launches

A redesign is a good moment to check the legal details a business website has to carry, because they are often missing from older websites. Company details, cookie consent and ownership of the finished website are the three areas most worth checking.

GOV.UK guidance on running a limited company says a company website must show the registered number, the registered office address, where the company is registered and that it is a limited company. These details usually sit in the website footer, where they appear on every page without cluttering the design.

Cookies need the same attention. The ICO’s guidance on cookies and similar technologies says a business must tell people the cookies are there, explain what they do and get consent. Cookies that are not strictly necessary cannot be set on the homepage before the visitor has agreed to them.

Ownership is the third check. GOV.UK guidance on the ownership of copyright works explains that when you commission a work, the person or organisation that creates it is the first owner of the copyright unless you agree otherwise in writing.

Ask for the domain, the content and the website files to belong to the business, with that agreed in writing before the redesign starts. Rapid Websites are set up this way, with the domain, the content and the website files all belonging to the business.

Checks to Make Once the New Website Is Live

The first few days after launch are when problems are easiest to spot and quickest to fix, so check the new website properly rather than assuming it all works. A short list of checks run on launch day catches most of the issues customers would otherwise find first.

Start with the things customers rely on. Send a test enquiry through every form, ring the phone number from the website on a mobile and open the most visited pages on a phone, a tablet and a computer.

Then test the redirects by visiting a selection of old page addresses and checking that each one lands on the right new page. Search Console may list the old addresses as redirected pages for a while, which is expected and explained in our guide to pages with redirects in Search Console.

Update the website address anywhere it has changed, including online directory listings, social media profiles and email signatures. After a few weeks, compare enquiries and visitor numbers with the months before the redesign, using the analytics data from both websites.

A redesign that keeps the page addresses, the content that ranks and the details customers rely on gives the new website a head start rather than a fresh start. The visible design is the part everyone notices, but the planning behind it decides whether the website brings in more work.