Improving your site

When to redesign your business website: keep, fix or rebuild?

How to tell whether your website needs a few fixes or a fresh start, and how to switch to a new one without losing the customers and searches you already have.

By Josh, Web Designer, Developer & SEO Updated 5 October 2026 6 min read How we check our facts

An old website is not automatically a bad one. Some ten-year-old sites still bring in steady work, and some brand-new ones bring in nothing. The question is not how old it looks but whether it still does its job: helping the right people find you, trust you and get in touch. This guide helps you decide between keeping it, fixing it and starting again.

Signs your website is holding you back

It is awkward on a phone. Text you have to zoom to read, buttons too small to tap, or a menu that does not work. Many people will look at your site on a phone first.
You cannot change it yourself, or nobody can. The person who built it has gone, the login is lost, or every small change costs time and money.
The details are wrong. Old prices, services you no longer offer, a phone number or address that has changed.
It is slow. Pages that take several seconds to appear lose visitors before they have seen anything.
It does not say what customers are looking for. No clear list of services, no mention of where you work, no obvious way to get in touch.
Security warnings. “Not secure” in the browser bar, or a site that has been hacked. See website security for Jersey businesses.
It no longer matches your business. You have grown, changed what you do or rebranded, and the site still describes the old business.

Keep, fix or rebuild: a quick checklist

Keep it if it works well on a phone, loads quickly, you can update it, and it brings in enquiries. Spend your time on the content instead: better photos, clearer service descriptions and up-to-date details.
Fix it if the structure is sound but parts are out of date or broken: a few pages to rewrite, a contact form that fails, missing parishes or services. Fixes are cheaper than a rebuild and keep what already works.
Rebuild it if it is hard to use on a phone, you cannot get into it, it runs on software nobody maintains any more, or your business has changed so much that most pages need rewriting anyway.

Before you change anything: make sure you own it

Check that the domain name is registered in your name or your business’s name, that you know who hosts the site, and that you can log in. If any of those are missing, sort them out first: it is far easier to do while the old site is still running. Our guide to getting your website and .je domain back walks through it.

How to switch without losing customers or searches

Keep the pages that bring in visitors. If people find a particular page on Google, the new site should have an equivalent page.
Redirect old addresses. When a page moves, the old address should send visitors to the new one automatically. Otherwise links and search results lead to an error page.
Keep your contact details consistent everywhere: the website, your Google Business Profile if you have one, social pages and directories.
Check everything after launch: forms, phone links, booking buttons and the pages on a phone.

An example: the Jersey Sports Council

When we built the Jersey Sports Council website, the brief was about doing the job, not looking modern for its own sake. In the Council’s own words: “We had over fifty years of history and nowhere sensible to put it online.” The new site brings its 41 member clubs, across six activity categories, into one directory, alongside news and an events calendar.

The real test of a website is whether it gets used. The Council’s volunteer committee runs the site itself: counted on 2 October 2026, it had published 80 news stories since December 2025 and added 157 events to the island’s sports calendar, without needing us for each update. That is the kind of result to aim for: a site the business can keep current, and that answers visitors’ questions before they pick up the phone.

Not sure which you need?

Our free website planner asks six quick questions, including where you are starting from, and suggests whether to fix what you have or replace it. It shows the plan on screen with no email needed. Builds start from £100 and are priced to the job, with hosting from £20 a month.

New to some of these terms? Our Jargon Buster explains website and marketing language in plain English.