Redoing your website means rebuilding it so it's better looking, faster, better placed on Google and turns more visitors into customers, all without throwing away what already works. Most people think about it every three to five years, or sooner when the site drags, looks old, becomes a pain to update, or just doesn't look like what you do anymore. When it's done right, a redesign keeps the traffic you spent years building and fixes what held you back, and it pays for itself through the enquiries and sales that a fast, clear site brings in.
In this guide I'll walk you through everything worth knowing before you start: when a redesign is genuinely worth it, which type to pick, how to run the project without wrecking your search ranking, what budgets and timelines to expect in France, Switzerland and beyond, and the mistakes that send a project off the rails. It's written for company owners, founders and independents who want a site that matches what they sell.
What is a website redesign?
A redesign means taking the structure, content and technology of your site back to the drawing board so it works harder for you, not just so it looks nicer. Depending on the scale, it touches the design, the way your pages are organised, the technical foundations, or all three at once.
The difference to keep in mind is simple. Refreshing a site means changing a couple of colours, swapping a few images and tweaking a font, and it takes a few days. Redoing a site means rethinking how people move through it, how fast it loads and how Google understands it, and now we're talking weeks, with a real effect on your revenue. A lot of people mix the two up and end up paying redesign money for a paint job, or the other way around.
Why and when should you redo your site?
You redo your site when several signs of wear pile up to the point where every month on the old version costs you customers. On its own, none of these signs is enough, but when they stack up, it's genuinely worth it.
The symptoms almost always show up in the same order. Your site takes more than three seconds to load on a phone, and visitors leave before they've read a single line. The design clearly shows its age and gives an image below what you're actually worth. The navigation was never built for mobile, even though that's where most of your visitors come from. Your Google rankings stall despite your efforts. And every time you want to change something, you have to call a provider because the site has grown too fragile to touch. If you tick three boxes or more, it's time to talk about it.
The right moment to start is almost never when the site is already dead, because by then you've already lost customers. It's more when your business has grown faster than your site, when your offer has changed, and when the gap between what you sell and what your site shows starts to embarrass you in front of a prospect.
Graphic, technical or complete redesign: which one to choose?
The right choice depends on the state of your foundations, and pinning down the scope saves you from paying for things you don't need. There are three levels of redesign, for three different situations.
The graphic redesign
You keep the structure and technology in place and only redo the look: fonts, colours, layout, images. It's the fastest and cheapest, and it's perfect when your technical foundations still hold up and only the styling has aged. You pick it to freshen things up without reopening everything.
The technical redesign
You keep the overall look but rebuild the foundations: a faster site, security brought up to date, code cleaned up, slowness fixed. It's the right answer when your site is nice to look at but slow, fragile, or impossible to grow without breaking something.
The complete redesign
You take everything back: design, content, the way pages are organised, and the technology. It's the one to aim for when your site doesn't look like you anymore, or when you want to leave an off-the-shelf solution for a custom-built site engineered for speed and conversion. It's also the one that pays the most over time, because it goes after the cause of the problems, not just the symptoms.
What are the steps of a successful redesign?
A redesign that works follows a method, and skipping a step almost always means copying the old site's flaws straight into the new one. Six steps structure a serious project, from analysis to follow-up.
- Auditing what you've got. You look at speed, where the traffic comes from, which pages actually bring you enquiries, and where visitors drop off. This audit tells you plainly what to keep, what to fix and what to bin.
- The brief. You set the goals, how the pages are organised, the features you want and the constraints. A clear brief is your best protection against the back-and-forth that gets expensive along the way.
- The design. Mockups turn strategy into real pages, drawn for the phone first and then scaled up to the big screen, because the first impression plays out on mobile.
- Development. You build the new site on sound foundations, taking care of load speed and code quality, two things that then weigh on your ranking and your conversions.
- Testing before launch. You check everything: how it shows on every screen size, the forms, the real speed, the redirects. Nothing goes live until those tests are done.
- Launch and follow-up. The launch goes hand in hand with keeping a close eye on your rankings and traffic in the following weeks, so you can react fast if a detail slipped through.
Careful work at every step is the difference between a project that ships on time and one that drags, and you'll find real examples of this method in my work.
How do you keep your search ranking during a redesign?
You keep your ranking by holding on to the content that brings you traffic, setting up clean redirects, and checking the technical side right after launch. It's the step people neglect the most, and the one that does the most damage when it's rushed, because a badly run redesign can wipe out years of good ranking in a few weeks.
Three precautions are enough to avoid the accident, as long as you plan them from the start. The first is to spot the pages that already bring you traffic and good positions, then keep and improve them instead of deleting them just because you're starting fresh. The second is to set up clean 301 redirects between each old address and the new one, so Google and your visitors find every page at its new spot instead of hitting an error. The third is to check the technical side right after launch, from page titles to descriptions, from the sitemap to load speed.
Done well, a redesign doesn't drop your ranking, it lifts it, because a faster, better-organised site is exactly what Google wants to put forward today.
How much does a website redesign cost?
The price depends on what you're redoing and the level you're after, and the gap is huge between a quick refresh and a full rebuild. To give you a rough idea on the Swiss market, a redesign built on a prebuilt template, meaning an off-the-shelf theme you adapt, starts at a few thousand francs, while a complete custom redesign usually runs between CHF 4,000 and CHF 15,000 depending on the number of pages, the complexity and the care put into the design.
On top of that starting budget, add costs that come back every year for hosting and maintenance, generally between CHF 350 and CHF 1,000 a year. These amounts move mostly with the originality of the design, the choice between custom work and a ready-made template, and add-ons like an online store or a connection to a tool you already use. A redesign that adds a shop or a booking system will logically sit at the top of the range.
The real calculation isn't the cost, it's what it brings you back. A site that loads fast, converts better and climbs back up Google pays for its redesign with the revenue it generates, while a cheap site that doesn't convert costs you more every month, in lost customers, than its starting price ever did.
How long does a website redesign take?
A graphic redesign wraps up in a few weeks, while a complete custom redesign usually takes six to twelve weeks, audit and testing included. And what stretches a project the most is almost never technical.
What drags a project out is how long you take to hand over your content and sign things off. The copy that doesn't arrive, the photos you're waiting on, the feedback that takes two weeks to land, that's what pushes a launch back, far more reliably than any coding hurdle. Preparing your content ahead of time and naming a single person who signs off saves a ton of time on everything else. That single decision-maker matters more than you'd think, because one voice that calls it at the end of each stage prevents the slow drift that quietly turns a six-week project into a four-month one.
Should you stay on WordPress or move to custom?
Staying on WordPress makes sense when your team already knows the tool and your needs stay simple, while moving to custom gets interesting as soon as speed and image genuinely matter to you. A lot of sites due for a redesign run on a WordPress install weighed down by the years, with stacked plugins, an overloaded theme and slowness that's become chronic.
When your site is just a shop window and someone in-house can manage it, renovating what you've got keeps all its sense. But as soon as your site becomes a real sales tool, the one your incoming enquiries depend on, a site built on recent technologies moves into another league: it loads in a fraction of a second, ages better and gives an experience ready-made templates can't reach. For a business whose online presence directly affects sales, custom isn't a luxury, it's an investment that pays for itself through the quality of the contacts it brings you.
What mistakes should you avoid during a redesign?
The most expensive mistake is launching the project without measurable goals, because then you've got no way of knowing whether it worked. A few traps come up all the time and turn a promising redesign into a headache.
Forgetting 301 redirects stays the big classic, the one that watches traffic collapse in the days after launch, because every old address now points to a page that can't be found. Copying a competitor's design instead of building your own identity robs your site of what would make it memorable. Cutting corners on mobile means polishing the version a minority of people will see. Underestimating how long it takes to produce your content pushes the whole schedule back. And picking a provider just because they're the cheapest, without looking at the real quality of what they've already delivered, often means paying twice: once for the failed redesign, once to fix it.
What should a website redesign brief include?
A good brief sets out your goals, how the pages are organised, the features you want, the technical constraints and the criteria that'll sign off the finished site, so the provider quotes accurately and no surprise lands halfway through. It's the document that gets everyone on the same page about the result before the first line of code.
In practice, a good brief starts by explaining your context and the reasons for the redesign, then sets numbers to hit, like a load time to reach, a conversion rate to aim for, or a number of enquiries you expect. It then describes who you're talking to, how you want the pages organised, and the content to keep, rewrite or move over, which ties directly into protecting your ranking. It lists the features you need, from the contact form to the online store, including connections to tools you already use. It also spells out the designs you like, your brand constraints, your speed requirements, the redirect plan, the budget and the timeline you want. The more precise this document is up front, the fewer expensive back-and-forths you'll get later, and the more comparable the quotes you receive become.
How do you choose a website redesign agency?
You choose an agency on the real quality of what it has already delivered, its method, its grip on search ranking and its ability to explain its choices, never on the cheapest quote alone. The most tempting entry price often hides a ready-made template that dozens of other businesses already use.
A few questions sort the serious ones from the rest fast. Ask to see real work that looks like your project, and check whether the delivered sites load fast and hold up over time. Check how the agency handles your ranking during the switch, and especially whether it plans 301 redirects, because a vague answer there should set off alarm bells. Make sure you stay the owner of the code and the access once the site ships, so you don't end up tied hand and foot to one provider. Ask what's planned after launch, because a site lives, grows and needs looking after. An agency that takes the time to explain its choices instead of promising you an unbeatable price is almost always the better bet over time. That's exactly the approach I stand for in my services.
Where to start to get your redesign right
A website redesign isn't a decoration expense, it's a business decision, and it makes sense when your site holds you back instead of helping you grow. It pays off when it improves speed, design, ranking and conversion all at once, and everything rests on a serious method, from the first audit through to the follow-up after launch, always keeping an eye on protecting the traffic you already have.
The best starting point is still an honest audit of what you've got, one that tells you what deserves to stay and what needs to change. If your site no longer reflects the level of your business or costs you customers every month, let's talk about your project and look together at what a well-thought-out redesign would change for you.
