Redesign or rebuild: how to decide
Redesign when the foundation is sound: solid content, earned rankings, clean data, but an ageing look or stack. Start over when the CMS is end-of-life, when technical debt costs more than the site is worth or when the business need has changed.
And when doubt remains, an audit settles it on evidence rather than gut feeling.
Five signals that argue for a redesign
- The design is dated, but the content and structure hold up.
- The site is slow while the technical base stays maintainable.
- Mobile was bolted on afterwards, and it shows.
- Your brand has moved on, your site hasn't.
- The friction points are many but small: forms, journeys, wording.
Four signals that argue for a fresh start
- The CMS or its plugins are no longer maintained: every update is a gamble.
- Technical debt outweighs the value: fixing costs more than rebuilding.
- The need has changed in nature: a brochure site does not become a business platform through patches.
- Security cannot be recovered on the existing base.
What you never lose, either way
Your rankings (every old address must 301-redirect to its replacement), your content, your data and your email. That's the real risk of a badly run change, and it's why I handle the migration for free: site, content and email move without interruption.
The cost of the decision
An audit of an existing site starts at €490 excl. VAT (a focused review of one aspect); the full audit with a reasoned recommendation to redesign or rebuild starts at €1,500: technical state, performance, rankings, security. Then the orders of magnitude: a new brochure site starts at €1,500 excl. VAT, a corporate site at €5,000. The full detail lives in how much a website costs in Belgium.
How I settle it
On evidence: I measure real performance, I read the code and the database, I list what can be kept (content, positions, data) and what must be replaced, then I price both scenarios side by side. The decision is yours, with numbers rather than impressions. That's how I work across Belgium, and the first step stays small: a €490 excl. VAT audit, before any commitment.
