Signs your small business website needs a redesign

You can tell whether your website needs a redesign in about ten minutes, with your own phone and a computer, without any technical knowledge. The test is not whether the site looks old to you. It is whether a new customer can find out what you do, trust you, and get in touch without friction. Below are ten checks, what each one tells you, and when the answer is "fix this one thing" rather than "start again".

Before you start

Have two things ready: your phone, and a computer with a browser. Use your phone first, because that is where most of your visitors will see your site. Turn off Wi-Fi on the phone for the first check, so you see the site the way someone in a parking lot does.

Keep a piece of paper next to you and write down each check that fails. The count at the end tells you a lot.

The phone checks (about four minutes)

1. The first screen. Open your home page on your phone. Without scrolling, can you tell what the business does and where? If the first screen is a big photo with a slogan, or a logo and nothing else, a new visitor has to work to understand you. That is a fail.

2. The pinch test. Do you need to pinch or zoom to read the text? If the page looks like a shrunken desktop page, with tiny text and buttons too small for a thumb, the site was not built for phones. This one alone usually means a redesign, because it cannot be patched. Why old websites look bad on phones explains why.

3. The phone number tap. Find your phone number and tap it. Does your phone offer to call? If the number is in a picture, or nothing happens, customers who want to call have to memorize it and type it. Fail.

4. The wait. Open the site fresh on mobile data. Count how long until you can read the first screen. If you are counting past a few seconds, people are leaving before it appears.

The trust checks (about three minutes)

5. The dates. Scroll to the bottom of the page. Does the copyright year, a "latest news" item or an event say a year long gone? Visitors read old dates as "maybe they closed". Copyright years are easy to fix; a news section last updated years ago is a sign nobody can easily edit the site.

6. The facts. Read your hours, address, services and staff names. Is anything wrong? Former employees, a service you stopped offering, a phone number that changed? Every wrong fact costs a call or a visit.

7. The browser warning. On the computer, look at the address bar. Does the browser say "Not secure" next to your address? That means the site does not use an encrypted connection, and many visitors will not fill in a form there. HTTPS and the padlock explains what it means.

The contact and control checks (about three minutes)

8. The form test. Fill in your own contact form with a test message and send it. Did it arrive in your inbox within a few minutes? If not, you may have been missing enquiries for months without knowing.

9. The change test. Think of a small change: new hours, a holiday closure, a new photo. Do you know how to make it yourself today? If the answer is "call the person who built it" and that person is hard to reach, or "I don't have the login", you do not control your own site.

10. The search test. On the computer, search Google for your business name and your town. Does your website come up, and does the title Google shows look right? If it shows an old business name, wrong services, or not your site at all, something on the site is out of date. That needs a look, though not always a redesign.

Reading your score

Count the failed checks.

None or one. Your site is doing its job. Fix the one item and leave the rest alone. A redesign would spend money to solve a problem you do not have.

Two or three. Look at which ones. Wrong facts, an old copyright year and a form that does not arrive are fixes, not redesigns, if you can still edit the site. A site that fails the pinch test or that you cannot edit is closer to a redesign.

Four or more. A redesign will likely cost you less, in money and missed customers, than keeping the old site going. Patching four problems on an old platform usually takes longer than people expect, and the next problem is close behind.

A few failures always point to a redesign, whatever the count:

• The site does not work properly on phones (check 2).
• You cannot make changes yourself and nobody else will (check 9).
• The platform is closing or no longer supported, such as an old builder your host is retiring.

Signs that do not mean you need a redesign

Some things feel like reasons to redesign but are not, on their own:

• "It looks a bit plain." Plain sites that are clear, quick and correct often get more calls than fancy ones.
• "A competitor got a new site." Their new site is not your problem unless yours fails the checks above.
• "Someone emailed me saying my site is broken." Unsolicited emails from agencies and offshore marketers often say this to everyone. Do the checks yourself instead.
• "It has been five years." Age alone is not a reason. How often to redesign goes into why triggers matter more than the calendar.

What to do this week

• Do the ten checks, write down each failure, and count them.
• Fix any wrong facts and the copyright year today, if you can.
• Send yourself a test from your contact form, and check your spam folder too.
• Find your logins for the website, the domain and your email, before you decide anything.
• If you scored four or more, or failed the phone or change test, start planning a redesign.

If your site failed several checks but the content is still right, you can see your site rebuilt first from what is already on it, and compare it side by side with the old one before you decide.