Rebuild or repair
Do you need a new website, or just a fix to the one you have?
Rebuilding is the default advice from everybody who sells rebuilds. Sometimes it is right. Often the site you have is three problems away from being fine, and the three problems are cheaper than starting again.
If your site is slow, hard to read on a phone, or missing information, that is usually a fix. If it cannot be edited, nobody has the files, it was built on something no longer supported, or it does not work on a phone at all, that is a rebuild. Being ugly on its own is rarely enough.
Written by Susarathi Bose of Silicon Insights, Kolkata. Last updated .
In detail
How to tell which one you are looking at.
Fix: it is slow
Almost always oversized photographs, and almost always fixable in an afternoon without touching the design. Have somebody measure it on a phone on mobile data before anyone quotes you for a new site.
Fix: the information is wrong or missing
Old hours, a dead phone number, no address, a menu as a photograph. These are content problems wearing the costume of a design problem, and they are what is actually costing you customers.
Fix: it does not show up on Google
Nine times in ten this is the Google Business Profile rather than the website, and a new site will not touch it. Check the listing before you spend anything on pages.
Rebuild: nobody can edit it
The person who built it is unreachable, or the system it was built in no longer exists. Once nothing can be changed safely, every small fix costs more than it should and you are paying rent on a dead thing.
Rebuild: it genuinely does not work on a phone
Not "looks a bit small". Text you must pinch to read, buttons that miss, a menu that will not open. Most people arrive on a phone, so this is not a cosmetic complaint.
Rebuild: you do not have the files or the domain
Then you are not really deciding between fixing and rebuilding. You are deciding whether to keep renting from whoever holds them. Sort out who owns what first, because it changes the whole question.
A useful test: write down the three things about your site that annoy you most. If all three are content or speed, you want a fix. If one of them is "nobody can change it", you want a rebuild, and the sooner the cheaper.
Questions
Questions people ask
My site looks old. Is that enough reason to rebuild?
On its own, usually not. Looking dated costs you less than being slow, being wrong or being missing from Google, and those three are all fixable without starting again. Where looking old genuinely does hurt is when it makes people doubt you are still trading, which is a real problem for a shop or a clinic. If your site says copyright 2018, fix that today whatever else you decide.
Can you work on a site somebody else built?
Usually, and we will look before quoting. Sometimes the honest answer is that the thing it was built on makes small changes expensive enough that a rebuild costs less over two years, and we will show you the arithmetic rather than assert it. Where the current site is held or hosted by somebody else, the first job is normally getting the accounts into your own name.
Will a new website get me to the top of Google?
No, and be careful with anyone who says otherwise. A new site can remove things holding you back and give search engines something clear to read. Where you rank also depends on your Google listing, on how long you have existed, on reviews, and on who else is competing for the same words. Anyone promising a position is promising something they do not control.
The other questions