Website redesign: when your site no longer does your business justice

How can you tell a website is outdated?

Not every old site is bad, but most show the same signs. It loads slowly. On a phone you have to zoom in to read anything. The opening hours are wrong, or it lists services you stopped offering long ago. And often WordPress and its plugins haven’t been updated in years, which leaves the door open to hackers.

Customers notice straight away. When people land on a dated site, many assume the business itself hasn’t kept up. That’s unfair, but it’s how people choose, often within a few seconds of landing on the page.

Should you start over completely?

Not always. If the foundations are still sound and what you mainly need is someone to look after the site, updates and maintenance are enough; we have a separate approach for that. If the foundations are weak, a new site is the better choice, because patching the old one takes longer than rebuilding. At Etappe in Paal and Detry Pompes in Naninne there was little left to build on, so we started from scratch.

We’ll tell you honestly which route makes sense, based on your request and a look at your current site. Once the quote is agreed, Louis visits you, goes through the site with you and listens to what your business needs today, which is often different from what it needed when the first site was made.

How do you keep your Google rankings during the switch?

This is the riskiest moment of any redesign, and it’s often forgotten. A new site with new page addresses and no redirects can cost you a large share of your visitors within weeks.

So we start with the data in Google Search Console. Which pages bring in visitors? Which searches do you already rank for? That content carries over deliberately. Every old URL then gets a permanent redirect to its new page, and after launch we check in Search Console that Google picks everything up correctly.

What changes for your customers?

They find what they need faster. The new site is designed for phones, with clear buttons to get in touch, get directions or ask for a quote. The copy is rewritten in your words, using the terms customers actually search for. And the technical structure lets Google and AI assistants such as ChatGPT describe your business correctly.

How do you avoid ending up here again in five years?

Websites age because nobody looks after them. With Atelier Web’s yearly maintenance package, that doesn’t happen. We pay for and manage hosting and the domain, keep WordPress and the plugins up to date, make backups and watch security. Small changes during the year, like new photos or summer opening hours, we handle for you.

We also keep the design current. Web design moves fast, and what looks fresh today will look old in five to ten years. By updating the site step by step, you never have to start over. One contact for all of it, and you hear back within 24 hours.

Ready for a redesign?

Have a look below at a few sites we built or refreshed, then ask for a quote. Include the link to your current site in your request, and Louis will look at it before he replies.