A website redesign is needed when the site gets in the way of the business: it works badly on phones, loads slowly, brings no enquiries, or no longer matches what the company has become. If the problem sits in one page, form or text, targeted fixes are enough. The main rule of a redesign is not to lose search positions: keep page addresses or set up permanent redirects.
Key takeaways
A redesign is justified when the problem is in the foundation of the site: structure, template, content management system or positioning. If one part is broken, it is cheaper and faster to fix it and leave the rest alone.
Compare your symptom with the table. It separates tasks that a targeted fix solves from tasks that need a rebuild.
| Symptom | Likely cause | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Low conversion on a single page | Weak offer, long form, no call to action | Rework the page |
| The site is hard to use on a phone | The template was not built for mobile screens | Redesign, if the template is old |
| Pages load slowly | Heavy images, extra plugins or an outdated platform | Optimisation; redesign if the platform is the cause |
| The company changed its services or brand | The site describes the previous business | Redesign and a new structure |
| The content management system cannot be updated | The platform is unsupported, plugins are incompatible | Redesign with a move to a new platform |
| Only the look is outdated | The template looks old, but the structure works | Refresh the design without changing addresses |
Tip “It looks old” is not a reason for a redesign on its own. Look at the numbers first: how many visitors reach an enquiry, where they come from and where they leave.
There is also a middle option: refresh the design on the same platform and with the same page addresses. It is cheaper than a full rebuild and safer for search, because no redirects are needed. Consider it if the structure of the site works and the problems lie in the look and the mobile version.
An outdated site gives itself away through an awkward mobile version, low speed, falling conversion, an unsupported platform and content that no longer matches the real business. Check each sign against the list.
The mobile version matters more than it seems: Google uses the mobile version of a site’s content for indexing and ranking. Google warns that removing content from the mobile version can cost a site traffic.
Speed and usability are measured with three Core Web Vitals metrics. A page is considered good at the 75th percentile of page loads, and the thresholds are published by web.dev.
If key pages miss these values and the cause is the template or the platform, that is an argument for a redesign. If the cause is one heavy image, optimisation is enough.
A redesign runs in six steps: audit of the current site, goals, structure, design and development, content migration with testing, and launch with redirects. Without an audit it is easy to lose the pages that brought traffic and leads.
Mistake Leaving a noindex tag or a robots.txt block, set for the development period, on the new site. Google directly advises checking the robots.txt rules of the new site and removing noindex at launch.
Traffic is kept in two ways: leave page addresses as they were, or set up a permanent redirect from each old address to the new one. Meta data and content move together with the pages.
If addresses do not change, no redirects are needed, and this is the safest option. If they change, Google recommends permanent server-side redirects, codes 301 and 308, and advises keeping them as long as possible, generally at least a year. In its help on changing site structure, Yandex also specifies a 301 server redirect from the old address to the new one.
For Google, a permanent redirect is a signal that the new address should be treated as the main one. So each old address leads to the matching page, not to the home page: a blanket redirect to the home page loses the meaning of the page.
The title, description and main text of pages that bring traffic are carried over without losing their meaning. For a design change, Yandex advises making sure that the content is available to the robot in the HTML code without JavaScript, there are no stray noindex tags, and the title and description are filled in. For the mobile version, Google asks for the same primary content and matching title and description.
Both services are connected before launch. In Google Search Console you set up access for the old and the new site, save a sitemap with the new addresses and, after launch, follow the indexing reports. In Yandex Webmaster you check that the server responds with code 200, add the new addresses to the Sitemap and send them for re-crawling.
Timing depends on the size of the site. Google notes that for a small or medium site most pages take a few weeks to move, and Yandex states that pages sent for re-crawling can reach search within two weeks. A small dip during these weeks is possible, and it is normal if the metrics recover afterwards.
After launch you check three things: that old addresses lead to new ones, that search engines see and index the new pages, and that enquiries arrive. Do it in the first days, while a mistake can still be fixed without losses.
Over the following weeks, compare the number of enquiries, search traffic and speed with the figures from before the redesign, which you recorded at the goals stage. Without this baseline you cannot say whether the redesign helped.
The price of a redesign is set by the number of pages, the scope of new features, the platform, the number of languages and the readiness of texts and photos. The word “redesign” does not set the cost: it depends on how much work stands behind it.
Reference points by format are on the service page. Syntra Systems prices for building new sites:
| Format | Price on the service page | What raises the cost |
|---|---|---|
| Landing page | from $1,200 | Custom blocks, animation, original texts and photos |
| Business website | from $1,900 | Number of sections and languages, CRM integration |
| Online store | from $10,000 | Catalogue, payment, data exchange with the accounting system |
We estimate a redesign of an existing site separately, after an analysis: we need to see what can be kept and what has to be rewritten. For more on how prices and the contents of a corporate site work, see the article on corporate websites.
We start with an audit: we look at which pages bring traffic and enquiries, how the site behaves on a phone and what stops a visitor from reaching the form. After the audit you get a decision: whether fixes are enough or a rebuild is needed, and what must not be touched in any case.
Next we build the address map, carry over the content of key pages, set up redirects and connect analytics. How design connects with the logic of the user journey we cover in the article on UX/UI, and how search optimisation is built in, in the piece on SEO. The service page is in the section on website development.
Before launch we test the site on a staging environment: redirects, forms, the mobile version and analytics. After launch we watch indexing in Search Console and Yandex Webmaster and compare metrics with those recorded at the start. This shows whether the redesign helped, not only whether the look changed.
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Tell us what you need, and we will estimate the timeline and cost and suggest a solution.
Record the numbers in advance: the number of enquiries, the share of visitors who reach the form, the speed of key pages. If they do not change after launch, the design changed but the task is still unsolved.
Google advises keeping redirects as long as possible, generally at least a year, so that it has time to transfer all signals to the new addresses and update the links.
Yes, while the site is in development, but the block must be lifted at launch. Google advises checking the robots.txt rules of the new site and removing noindex, otherwise the pages will not reach search.
To the closest page by meaning, not to the home page: a blanket redirect to the home page loses the meaning of the original page, and it is harder for a search engine to understand what replaced the address.
You can. Then no redirects are needed, and Yandex asks only to check that the content is visible to the robot in the HTML code, there are no stray noindex tags, and the title and description are filled in.
Only if the current one cannot be updated or limits the features. If the content management system is supported and works, the design can be changed on it, keeping the interface editors are used to.
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