Is Your Website Costing You Business? 7 Signs It's Time for a Redesign
By Karl Cowell, Creative Director · 5 November 2025 · 6 min read
Your website needs a redesign if it looks poor on mobile, has buttons that don't work, can't be found on Google, can't be updated without a developer, loads slowly, sounds like a robot wrote it, or simply isn't bringing in enquiries. Any one of those is costing you customers. Three or more, and a redesign will almost certainly pay for itself faster than patching things up.
Your website is usually the first time a potential customer meets your business. If that meeting falls flat, they don't ring to tell you. They just go to a competitor. Here are the seven signs we see most often, what each one costs you, and what to do about it.
Sign 1: It looks terrible on mobile
Over half of all web traffic now comes from mobile devices, and the commonly quoted figure is around 54%. If your text is tiny, your buttons are hard to tap or your images look squashed, people leave. One widely cited study found 70% of users are more likely to return to a mobile-friendly site.
How to check: open your site on your own phone, then on a friend's. Try to find your phone number and send an enquiry using only your thumb.
What to do: a proper redesign builds the mobile layout deliberately, not as a squashed copy of the desktop. On Wix Studio, that means designing each breakpoint properly.
Sign 2: You've got buttons that don't work (or go nowhere)
Nothing says "we don't really care" like a button that does nothing, or a link that lands on an error page. In one survey, 28% of users said they'd left a site because of broken links. Every button should lead to a useful action, such as getting a quote, booking a call or buying a product.
How to check: click every button and menu link on your site, on desktop and mobile. Then submit your own contact form and make sure the message actually arrives.
What to do: broken links and dead buttons can often be fixed quickly. If the whole site is a maze, a redesign lets you rebuild the journey so every click takes people somewhere useful.
Sign 3: You can't find yourself on Google
If searching for your business name or your main service in your town brings up everyone but you, alarm bells should ring. Research suggests 75% of users never scroll past the first page of results. If you're not there, you're mostly invisible.
How to check: search for your main service plus your town (for example "plumber Maidstone") in a private browser window. Also check whether Google has indexed your pages by searching site:yourdomain.co.uk.
What to do: a redesign is the perfect time to fix your structure, page titles, headings and content, because you're rebuilding them anyway. Good SEO is much easier to build in than bolt on afterwards.
Sign 4: You can't update anything without begging a developer
If changing an opening time or adding a photo means emailing a developer and waiting a week (and paying for it), your site is costing you time as well as money. Out-of-date websites lose trust fast.
What to do: move to a platform you can actually edit. Wix lets you change text, images and layouts yourself without technical knowledge, while the hosting, security and updates are handled for you. If your current site is on WordPress, Squarespace or something else, we can handle a move to Wix as part of the redesign.
Sign 5: It loads slower than dial-up
Speed matters. Research shows 40% of users will abandon a site that takes more than three seconds to load. A slow site also frustrates visitors into leaving early, which doesn't help your search rankings either.
Common causes: huge uncompressed images, autoplay videos, too many third-party apps or scripts, and old, bloated themes and plugins.
What to do: a redesign is the chance to strip out the clutter, use properly sized images and keep only the features that earn their place.
Sign 6: The copy sounds like a robot wrote it
If your website reads like a corporate brochure from 2009, full of phrases like "leading provider of bespoke solutions", people switch off. Visitors want to know, in plain English, what you do, who it's for, why they should pick you and what to do next.
How to check: read your homepage out loud. If it doesn't sound like you talking to a customer, it needs rewriting.
What to do: rewrite it in your own voice, lead with the customer's problem, and back it up with real proof like reviews and examples of your work.
Sign 7: You've not had a single enquiry in months
This is the big one. If your website isn't generating enquiries, it isn't doing its job. Usually it's a mix of the issues above: people can't find you, can't use the site on their phone, don't trust what they see, or can't work out how to get in touch.
What to do: look at the whole journey, from the Google search to the contact form. When we rebuilt the website for Maths Flex, trial lessons went from 1 a month to 5 within 3 weeks. You can read the Maths Flex case study to see what changed.
Real example: A site that gets in the way costs you enquiries. The owner of Maths Flex, a private maths tuition business, first went with a cheaper website. Between the build and an independent review that confirmed it was not working, £800 had gone before the site was doing its job. After a streamlined Wix Studio rebuild, trial lessons went from barely one a month to five in the first three weeks. See the Maths Flex case study.
The 7 signs at a glance
Sign | What it costs you | Quick fix or redesign? |
Bad on mobile | Most of your visitors | Usually a redesign |
Broken buttons and links | Trust and enquiries | Often a quick fix |
Not on Google | New customers who never find you | Structure and SEO, best done in a redesign |
Can't update it yourself | Time, money and freshness | Redesign, often on a new platform |
Slow to load | Impatient visitors and rankings | Depends on the cause |
Robotic copy | Connection and conversions | Rewrite, often part of a redesign |
No enquiries | Your whole investment | Usually a redesign |
Redesign or fix: which do you need?
Not every problem needs a full rebuild, and we'll always tell you straight. As a rough guide:
- One or two small issues, like a broken form or a couple of dead links, can usually be sorted with a Wix Fix session at £75 an hour + VAT.
- Three or more signs, or a site that's more than a few years old, usually needs a redesign. Patching an outdated site often costs more over time than starting fresh.
- Navigation problems you might be able to improve yourself first. Our guide on making your Wix site easy to navigate covers the quick wins.
Ready to stop your website costing you business?
We're a Wix-only agency and Wix Legend Partner with 500+ Wix websites built and a 5.0 star Google rating from 47 reviews. Our Wix website redesign service fixes all seven of these problems in one go, with your homepage designed in 7 to 10 working days and the rest of the site in 3 to 4 weeks. Packages start from £849 + VAT, or £85 a month for 12 months.
Send us your current website and we'll tell you honestly whether it needs a redesign or just a few fixes. Get in touch here.
Frequently asked questions
How do I know if my website needs a redesign?
Look for the warning signs: it looks poor on mobile, has broken buttons or links, doesn't appear on Google, can't be updated without a developer, loads slowly, has stiff or dated copy, or isn't bringing in enquiries. If you spot three or more, a redesign is usually better value than fixing each problem one at a time.
How often should a website be redesigned?
There's no fixed rule, but many businesses find their site starts to feel dated after a few years as design trends, devices and customer expectations change. Rather than redesigning on a timer, review your site every year against the seven signs. If it's still bringing in enquiries and works well on mobile, small updates may be enough.
How long does a website redesign take?
With The Wix Guys, your new homepage design is ready in 7 to 10 working days. Once you're happy with it, the rest of the site is built in 3 to 4 weeks. The biggest factor in timing is usually how quickly content, images and feedback come back to us, so having those ready speeds things up.
How much does a website redesign cost?
It depends on the size of the site and what it needs to do. At The Wix Guys, Wix website packages start from £849 + VAT, or £85 a month for 12 months. If you only need small fixes rather than a full redesign, our Wix Fix service is £75 an hour + VAT.
Will a redesign affect my Google rankings?
It can, either way. Done carelessly, a redesign can lose rankings through changed URLs, missing content or no redirects. Done properly, with redirects in place and better structure, headings and content, it often improves your visibility. Always make sure whoever redesigns your site plans the SEO side before anything goes live.
