Every website reaches a point where someone says “we need a new site”. What they usually mean is one of two very different projects. A redesign keeps the foundation and changes the experience: visual design, copy, layout, imagery. A rebuild replaces the foundation: the platform, the content model, the code, and normally the design with it. Choosing the wrong one is expensive in both directions, so here are the twelve questions we work through with clients before recommending either.
Part one: is the foundation sound?
If you answer “no” to two or more of these, you are looking at a rebuild.
1. Is the site fast on a phone, on mobile data?
Run it through PageSpeed Insights on mobile. Scores in the red that come from the platform itself, such as heavy themes, render-blocking scripts and plugin bloat, cannot be fixed with a redesign. Scores dragged down by large images and too many fonts usually can.
2. Can you update content without calling a developer?
If routine changes are slow, risky or need a specialist, the content model is the problem. A redesign leaves that untouched.
3. Is the platform still supported and secure?
Out-of-date CMS versions, abandoned plugins, PHP versions past end of life, or a page builder the vendor has stopped developing are foundation problems. Our hosting comparison covers what good infrastructure looks like underneath.
4. Does the site structure match the business?
Compare the navigation to how you actually sell today. Services that no longer exist, pages that nobody can find, and a blog that outranks your services page for your own name all point to structural change. Restructuring is possible in a redesign, but if the information architecture is wrong throughout, a rebuild is cleaner.
5. Can it carry a second language properly?
For Luxembourg this is often the deciding question. If adding French means duplicating pages by hand and maintaining them separately, the site cannot do what the market expects. Our bilingual website guide explains what “properly” means.
6. Do you own it?
If you cannot export the content, move hosts or take the design files with you, the platform owns the site. A rebuild is how you take it back.
Part two: is the experience failing?
If the foundation is sound and the problems live here, a redesign is the right size of project.
7. Does it look like the business you are now?
Brands move on. If the site reflects a positioning, logo or tone you have since outgrown, that is a design and copy problem.
8. Are visitors doing what you want them to do?
Check the paths that matter: service page to enquiry, article to sign-up, work to contact. Low conversion on a fast, well-structured site is usually a hierarchy, clarity and call-to-action issue.
9. Is the copy saying the right thing?
Read the home page as a first-time visitor. If it takes more than a few seconds to understand what you do, for whom, and why you, rewriting is the highest-return change available and needs no new platform.
10. Does it feel flat?
Static pages, no motion, generic stock imagery and identical card grids make good work look ordinary. Considered animation, better photography and a tighter design system are redesign territory.
11. Is accessibility an afterthought?
Colour contrast, focus states, alt text and keyboard navigation can all be fixed in a redesign. If the underlying HTML is a tangle of nested divs from a page builder, the fix is a rebuild.
12. Has search visibility plateaued or declined?
Thin metadata, missing structured data and weak internal linking are fixable in place. Crawl problems, duplicate URLs and slow server responses live in the foundation. Our article on visibility beyond SEO goes into how AI-driven search raises the bar on both.
Reading your answers
- Mostly “yes” in part one, problems in part two: redesign. Keep the platform, invest in design, copy and motion. Weeks rather than months.
- Two or more “no” answers in part one: rebuild. Fix the foundation and take the opportunity to redesign at the same time; doing them separately costs more overall.
- Everything is a problem: rebuild, but start with content. A new platform full of old copy is a missed opportunity.
Budget follows the same split, and we have set out the ranges in what a website costs in Luxembourg.
Protecting SEO, whichever you choose
Most post-launch ranking drops are self-inflicted. Before launch:
- Export every indexed URL from Search Console and your analytics.
- Map each one to its new equivalent, or to the closest relevant page. Never redirect everything to the home page.
- Carry over titles, descriptions, structured data and alt text, improving them rather than discarding them.
- Keep internal links pointing at the new URLs, not through redirects.
- Preserve hreflang pairs for every language.
- Submit the new sitemap and request indexing of key pages on launch day.
- Watch Search Console coverage and the 404 report for the first month.
How we approach it
Design and build sit together from the first conversation, so the recommendation is not biased towards whichever team is in the room. If the foundation holds, we say so and scope a redesign. If it does not, we rebuild as code, migrate the content and SEO deliberately, and keep the site improving afterwards through managed hosting and support. If you would like a second opinion on your own site, the project brief is the quickest way to start.