New site or redesign, how to chooseNNeeww ssiittee oorr rreeddeessiiggnn,, hhooww ttoo cchhoooossee

Your site is a few years old. It looks rough on a phone, it doesn't feel like you anymore, or you've stopped handing out the address. One question comes up fast: do you patch it or start over?

The answer rarely comes down to taste. It depends on what your site brings in today, what can be kept and what's really holding you back. You don't have to be technical to decide.

What's the difference between a new site and a redesign?

A new site starts from a blank page. A redesign modernizes your site, keeps what already works, like your content and your search rankings, and fixes what holds you back.

Either way, you end up with a fresh site on the screen. The difference is what you carry over. Your search rankings are your site's place on Google. They're earned over time, and they keep their value even when the site itself has aged badly.

When should you choose a new site?

A new site is the right call when there's little to protect. Three situations come up often.

You don't have a site yet

Take a made-up example: an osteopath sets up practice in Annecy and has no online presence. A single page can be enough. It explains her method, says who she works with and shows the price of a session before the first appointment. A site doesn't have to be big to be useful.

Your site doesn't bring you anything

Nobody finds you on Google, no inquiries come through the site, and all your customers come from word of mouth. There's very little left to save: only the pages that still get visits need to point to the new site.

Your business has changed

You don't sell the same thing anymore, or not to the same people. When the pages, the text and the images describe a business that's no longer yours, almost everything needs rewriting. You might as well start fresh.

Little to protect, almost nothing to keep: a new site is the simplest path.

When should you choose a redesign?

A redesign makes sense as soon as your site has value you can't see on the screen.

Your site already brings you customers

It has aged, but inquiries come in, or some pages rank well on Google. That traffic took time to build. Throwing it away over looks would be a bad trade.

Your content is good, but poorly presented

Your text describes your work well, your photos are real, your customer reviews are there. What's missing is a presentation that does them justice. We keep the substance and give it a new look.

What holds you back is easy to name

The site is slow, it's hard to read on a phone, the contact button is impossible to find, or the first screen doesn't say what you do. Those flaws are specific, so they can be fixed.

If your site already brings something in, look at a redesign first.

Three questions to decide

Answer them in this order. They're also what we cover on the first call.

Don't know your numbers? Ask your last few customers how they found you. Their answer already tells you whether your site is working for you.

Keep what brings in business,rebuild everything else

The trap to avoid: your page addresses

Every page on your site has an address. Google knows them and has ranked them one by one. If they change without warning, it runs into missing pages, and the rankings you had can slip away.

It's like moving without forwarding your mail. The fix is called a redirect: an instruction on the old address that sends visitors and Google to the new one. Google recommends it whenever addresses change.

That's why a serious redesign starts with an inventory. We list your pages, find the ones that bring you visits and decide for each one: keep it, rewrite it or redirect it. That invisible work protects your search rankings. A new site that replaces an old one needs the same care.

How long it takes

It depends on what your site needs to do. Here are the ballpark figures, as long as everything we need from you arrives on time.

We set the schedule with you right from the first call. On budget, it all depends on your project: you get a clear, detailed price, no strings attached. Read the full process, step by step.

If you still can't decide

Start by seeing where your site stands. Enter its address in our free analysis: in a few minutes, you get a first look at its search rankings, its speed and what slows your visitors down.

Then see what we offer for websites. New site or redesign, we'll recommend the right approach. And if a few fixes are enough, we'll tell you that too.