5 signs it's time to replace your website

I'll start with the unhelpful-for-me bit: most websites don't need replacing. A lot of the problems I get asked about are an afternoon's work on the site you've already got, and I'd rather say that than sell you a rebuild you don't need.

But some things can't be patched. Here are the five that, in my experience, mean starting again is genuinely the cheaper option.

1. You can't change anything yourself, and you can't get hold of whoever can

This is the most common one by a mile. Your prices went up in January. It's August and the site still shows the old ones. You've emailed twice.

Maybe the person who built it has moved on, or the login was never handed over, or it's built on something nobody wants to touch. Whatever the cause, a site you can't update is a site that will slowly become wrong about your own business — and wrong information costs you enquiries in a way a dated design never does.

If you're locked out, that's a hard blocker, and it's usually the point where rebuilding is quicker and cheaper than untangling.

2. It's genuinely painful on a phone

Open your own site on your phone, on mobile data, not on the wifi. Time it. Try to find your phone number and tap it. Try to fill in the contact form with your thumbs.

If that took more than a few seconds, or the menu didn't open, or you had to zoom to read anything, that's what every potential customer is going through. Most of them won't persevere, and none of them will tell you.

Sometimes this is fixable with tweaks — compressing enormous images gets you a long way. But if the site was built before mobile mattered, or it's carrying so much bloat that it can't be made fast, you're propping up something that should be replaced.

3. It doesn't reflect what you actually do any more

Businesses drift. You started offering emergency first aid at work, now the bulk of your income is paediatric courses for nurseries. Or you dropped a service two years ago and it's still listed as your headline offer.

If the gap between what the site says and what you do has got wide enough that you find yourself explaining it on the phone, the site is working against you. At that point it's not a content edit, it's a rethink of what the pages should even be — and that's a rebuild in all but name.

4. It's been getting nothing for years and you've already tried the obvious fixes

I've written separately about why a site ends up doing nothing, and the honest first step is always the cheap stuff: get it into Google Search Console, say clearly what you do and where, put a tappable phone number at the top, link to it from your socials and your email signature.

Do those, give it a few months. If it's still completely silent, the problem is likely in how the site is built or structured, and no amount of tinkering around the edges will shift it.

5. You're embarrassed to send people to it

This one sounds soft, but I take it seriously, because I've watched what it does.

If you avoid mentioning your website, leave it off your quotes, or say "ignore the site, it's rubbish, I'll email you the details", then you've already made the decision — you just haven't acted on it. A site you won't point people to has a value of zero, and you're still paying for it every month.

If you wouldn't send a customer to your website today, it isn't marketing. It's just a bill.

Signs that are not, on their own, reasons to rebuild

In fairness, the other side of it. None of these alone would make me tell you to start again:

• It looks a bit old-fashioned. A plain, clear, fast site beats a fashionable slow one every time.
• Someone cold-called and said it's "failing Google's new requirements". That's a sales script, near enough every time. Ask them to be specific and watch what happens.
• A competitor's site is flashier. Their enquiries are probably coming from somewhere else entirely.
• It's a few years old. Age isn't a fault. Being wrong, slow, or unreachable is.

If two or more of the five apply

That's usually the point where replacing works out cheaper than maintaining, because you stop paying to keep something limping along and start paying for something that does its job.

What I'd suggest: work out what you pay a year for the current site, then compare it with what a replacement actually costs. I've put my prices on the homepage so you can do that maths without having to ring anyone. If you're already paying for a site elsewhere, the deal is simple — tell me the number and I'll aim to match or beat it.

And if you send me your site and I think it's fine as it is, I'll tell you that. It's a shorter conversation, but it's the honest one.

Not sure which camp yours is in?

Send me the link and tell me what you're paying each month. I'll give you a straight answer on whether it needs replacing or just tidying up.