Website redesign or refresh: how to tell which you need
Refresh your website when its structure still works and only the look, words, photos or a few fixable details have slipped. Redesign it when the problems are structural: it fails on phones, can't be edited safely, runs on a platform you've outgrown or no longer matches what you sell. The fifteen-minute scorecard below tells you which.
By Hashim H., Elimenti. Published November 4, 2026.
The difference, in one table
| Compared | Refresh | Redesign |
|---|---|---|
| What changes | Photos, copy, colors, fonts and small fixes | Structure, layout and often the platform |
| What stays | The pages, their addresses and the platform | Your domain, and whatever content still earns its place |
| Search impact | Little, since addresses don't change | Changed addresses need redirects, and rankings can fluctuate for a while |
| With us, it costs | Hourly, at $85 an hour through Site Care | A new build, from $3,000 |
| With us, it takes | Five business days per change through Site Care | Most projects launch four to six weeks after kickoff |
The fifteen-minute scorecard
Open your site on your own phone, then run it through PageSpeed Insights, Google's free test, with the mobile tab selected. These are the same checks we ran on 150 independent business websites in the Hinsdale and Oak Brook chambers for our 2026 report, so you can see how your site compares with its neighbors.
Refresh-level problems: fixable without starting over
- The copyright year in the footer is out of date. A small thing visitors notice. In our study, 8% of the sites that showed a year showed one from 2024 or earlier.
- The phone number isn't tappable on a phone. Tap it. If nothing happens, a caller has to copy it by hand. 19% of the local sites that showed a phone number on the homepage didn't make it tappable.
- A link in the menu goes nowhere. Click Contact and every main menu item.
- Hours, prices, staff or photos are out of date.
- HTTPS is broken, or the site sends visitors back to plain HTTP. Usually a certificate or hosting setting, not a rebuild. 7% of the sites we could check had one of these problems.
Redesign-level problems: structural
- It scores under 50 for performance on mobile. Often the theme, builder or plugins underneath, which no amount of polish fixes. 53% of the local sites we measured scored under 50.
- On a phone, the page scrolls sideways or the text needs zooming. The layout wasn't built for small screens.
- Nobody can edit it without something breaking, or the only person who could has moved on.
- The structure no longer matches what you sell. Services you added years ago live in a paragraph on the wrong page, or don't appear at all.
- You don't control the domain, hosting or platform account. Fix that first. Here's how.
Reading your score
- No structural problems
- Refresh. Fix the refresh-level items, update photos and copy, and you'll get much of what a new site would give you, for less.
- One or two
- It depends on which. A slow site on a heavy theme or a site you can't edit safely usually ends in a redesign anyway. A missing page can be added.
- Three or more
- Redesign. Patching a site with structural problems costs money every month and still leaves you with the old structure.
Before you change anything
- Make sure you own the accounts. Domain, hosting and platform, in your business's name.
- Take a full backup. Files and database if there is one.
- List every page address. If a redesign changes them, each old address needs a permanent redirect to its new home. Google says permanent redirects don't cause a loss in PageRank, recommends keeping them for at least a year, and warns to expect temporary fluctuation in rankings during a move.
- Note what's working. The pages people actually visit, and the words customers use to describe you, should survive either way.
Two examples from our own work
Burdi Clothing had a working site that needed new event pages, not a new site, so we make targeted edits by the hour. ABN Construction Group chose to keep its existing WordPress site and extend it, and the first step was learning how it's built before changing anything. In both cases the existing site was kept and improved rather than replaced, which was the right call for where those sites were.
Common questions
Will a redesign hurt my Google rankings?
Not if it's planned. Keep the pages that earn visits, permanently redirect every old address to its new one and expect some temporary fluctuation while search engines catch up. The damage comes from deleting pages and letting old addresses return errors.
How often should a business website be redesigned?
There's no fixed schedule. Redesign when the scorecard says the structure is the problem, not because a set number of years has passed. A well-built site can be refreshed for years.
Can I refresh a Wix or Squarespace site instead of leaving the platform?
Yes. New photos, copy and a newer template are all refreshes. Leaving the platform is a redesign, because the site has to be rebuilt somewhere else.
Related
Thinking about a different platform? Read Wix, Squarespace, WordPress or custom. Ready for a refresh? Site Care handles changes in five business days. Ready for a redesign? See custom websites.
Sources
- Google Search Central, "Site moves with URL changes": permanent redirects and PageRank, keeping redirects at least a year, temporary ranking fluctuation.
- Elimenti, Western suburbs website report 2026: the local figures quoted above.