Website Redesign Services: Rebuild, Repair, or Leave It Alone
Plenty of businesses pay for a new website when what they needed was four hours of work on the one they have.
A website has one job for a service business: hold pages that get found, and turn the people who find them into calls. If yours can do that and simply nobody has added the pages, you have a content problem. If it cannot, you have a website problem. Those cost very different amounts to fix.
A new build starts at $3,200. Before you spend it, use the check below — it will tell you honestly if your site is fine as it is.
When Do You Actually Need a Website Redesign?
The honest line is this: if the only thing wrong is what is on your site, that is a content job. If what is wrong is what your site can do, that is a rebuild.
Dated-looking is not the same as broken. Google does not care whether your site looks like 2016, and neither does an AI engine. What both care about is whether there is a real page, at a real address, that answers what somebody searched for. A plain site with eight good service pages will beat a beautiful one with a scrolling services section every time.
Rebuild: When the Site Fights You
- Nobody has the login. The nephew moved, the agency will not hand it over. You cannot fix what you cannot get into, and this is far more common than anyone admits.
- It is one page pretending to be a website. A "Services" section you scroll past is not a service page. Five services means five pages, each at its own address.
- The text lives inside images. Nothing to read, nothing to index, nothing for an AI engine to quote.
- It genuinely does not work on a phone. Not "looks a bit off" — you cannot tap the buttons or read the text.
- The platform charges you per page, or will not let you set page titles. That is a ceiling, and every month of content hits it.
Repair: When the Foundation Is Fine
- Your business information is wrong. Old phone number, wrong hours, a service area from three years ago. Highest damage, lowest cost, and it contradicts your Google profile while it sits there.
- Every photo is stock. Not a penalty, but your own job photos are the one thing a competitor cannot copy.
- Service pages are missing. If the site can hold them and nobody wrote them, that is a content job, not a build.
- It loads slowly but works. Usually oversized images. An afternoon, not a rebuild.
- It looks dated. If the business is steady and money is tight, live with it. If you are growing and comparing quotes against competitors, that is when it starts costing you.
Should You Rebuild or Repair?
Ten questions, about two minutes. It will tell you which of four things you have: a rebuild, something worth verifying first, a few quick edits, or a site that is fine for now.
It genuinely does return "leave it alone", and it does that more often than you would expect from a page selling website builds. There is no email required and nothing is stored.
Does someone at your business have login access to the website?Not the person who built it. You.
Does each service you sell have its own page, at its own web address?A “Services” section you scroll past on the homepage does not count.
Is the site actually usable on a phone?Can you tap the buttons and read the text without pinching to zoom?
Can a visitor contact you without leaving the site?A working form, or a phone number they can tap.
Can you, or your web team, add new pages and set a different title on each one — without paying per page?Most owners do not know this. “Not sure” is the honest answer and it is fine.
Is your business information current — phone, hours, and service area?
Are the photos on the site your own job photos?Or are they stock images of people who have never held your tools?
Does it load in a few seconds on a phone, on mobile data?
Would you be comfortable sending a customer to your website right now?
Where is the business right now?
Answer the questions above and your read will appear here.
What a Small Business Website Design Actually Costs
| Item | Price | What That Covers |
|---|---|---|
| Core build | $3,200 | Five pages — home, about, contact, blog index, and one service page. Hosting and domain setup, theme install, brand styling, all copy written, schema, SEO tooling, search engine verification, indexing, mobile QA, and lead capture forms. |
| Additional pages | from $425 each | Service pages, regional guides, anything beyond the core five. Bought in blocks, so the more you add the better the rate. |
| CRM connection | $0 or $600 | Free if your CRM has a native Gravity Forms integration. If it does not, connecting it is $600. |
| Moving from another platform | Quoted | Depends almost entirely on how many pages you have. I need a crawl of the current site before I can give you a real number. |
A typical five-service contractor lands around $4,900. Half at signature, half at launch. Sign a six-month plan within 30 days of launch and the first month's onboarding uplift is waived — see the plan rate card.
Moving From Wix or Squarespace to WordPress
Most people leaving those platforms are leaving for the same reason: they hit a ceiling. Pages cost extra, page titles cannot be set individually, or the whole thing is fine until you want to do something specific and then it simply will not.
Website migration services get quoted rather than priced, because the variable that matters is how many URLs you have. Every one of them needs to point somewhere sensible on the new site, or the rankings you built go with the old pages. Wix and Squarespace exports each fail in their own specific ways, and knowing which ones in advance is most of the job.
WordPress Website Design Services, and Why
I build on WordPress because it gives me the deepest set of design, search, and AI-search tools available, and because you can take it with you. Nothing I build sits inside a platform that holds it hostage.
I have expert-level experience with Duda and HubSpot CMS as well. If your business genuinely needs to be on one of those, tell me why and I will quote it separately once I understand the requirement.
The site is yours either way. While you are on a monthly plan I cover your hosting. If you would rather control that yourself, or you take your marketing elsewhere, I will walk you through taking it over. A website you cannot leave with is not really yours.
Built for Local Businesses, Not for a Portfolio
- Search built in, not bolted on. Page titles, structure, schema, and internal linking are decided while the site is being built, not retrofitted six months later.
- One page per service. Because that is the unit that ranks, and the unit an AI engine can quote.
- All the copy written for you. Not a template with your business name dropped in. You will be asked for job details and photos, and that is the part that makes it yours.
- Lead capture that actually works. Forms tested end to end, notifications confirmed, phone numbers tappable. It is remarkable how often this is broken on a site somebody paid for.
- The person who quotes it builds it. No handoff to a junior, no offshore production line.
Who This Isn't For
- Ecommerce. I build informational sites for service businesses. If you need a store, hire someone who builds stores.
- Custom application work. Booking engines, portals, anything with a database behind it. Different discipline.
- Award-winning design. I build clean, fast, and findable. If you want something that wins design awards, that is a studio, and they are worth what they charge.
- Anyone who wants a page for every city they serve. The largest ranking study in the home service trades found page count does not move you. I spent a year undoing that tactic on a client site, and I will not sell it.
- Anyone whose real budget is $99 a month. Use a template builder. It beats nothing, and I would rather say so than sell you something you cannot afford.
Terms
| Term | What It Means |
|---|---|
| Payment | 50% at signature, the balance at launch. |
| Your content deadline | Your photos, job details, and any copy you want used are due by a date we agree in writing. This is the single biggest reason builds run late, so after that date I build with placeholders and the schedule holds. |
| Revisions | One round included on every page. |
| Ownership | The site is yours. Hosting is covered while you are on a monthly plan, and I will hand it over cleanly if you ever want to take it elsewhere. |
| Build-to-plan credit | Sign a six-month plan within 30 days of launch and the first month's onboarding uplift is waived. The build price itself is never discounted. |
How to Get a Website Redesign Quote
- Run the check above. If it says your site is fine, stop here and spend the money on content instead.
- Free assessment. I look at the actual site — access, structure, speed, indexing, and whether it can hold what you need. You get the findings whether or not you hire me.
- Scope and quote. Count your services, decide how many pages you need, add the integration if you have a CRM. The number comes off the published table, not out of the air.
- Content gathering. Photos, job details, licence numbers, service areas. Your deadline gets set here, in writing.
- Build, review, launch. You see it before it goes live, one round of changes, then redirects and indexing on launch day so nothing gets lost.
Questions About Website Redesigns
Will I lose my rankings when the new site goes live?
Not if the redirects are done properly. Every old address has to point at the page that replaced it, one by one — that mapping is the single most important part of a rebuild, and it is where most of the risk lives.
Expect a small dip for a week or two while Google reprocesses. That is normal and it recovers. What is not normal is a drop that keeps going, which almost always means redirects were skipped or done in bulk to the homepage.
I have been on the recovery end of this. At a previous company I inherited a site that had lost roughly 90% of its organic traffic to a botched platform migration, and led the work to get it back. That is why I am tedious about redirect maps.
Should I redesign my website, or just fix it?
If the only thing wrong is what is on it — old information, missing service pages, stock photos — that is a content job and it costs a fraction of a rebuild. If what is wrong is what it can do — you cannot add pages, cannot set page titles, cannot get into it at all — that is a rebuild. Run the check above and it will tell you which one you have.
How long does a rebuild take?
Four to six weeks for a typical build, and the variable is almost never me. It is how fast your photos and job details arrive. Builds that get everything in week one finish in four. Builds that wait on content finish when the content does — which is why there is a deadline in the agreement.
Do I own the site when it's done?
Yes. While you are on a monthly plan I cover your hosting. If you would rather control it yourself, or take your marketing somewhere else, I will walk you through taking the hosting over so you are never stuck with me by default. A website you cannot leave with is not really yours.
Why not just use a $99 a month website company?
I have worked with an agency that sold them, so I know what is inside one.
They are landing pages, not websites, and that matters more than it sounds. The largest local ranking study in your trades found that page depth is one of the things that actually moves you — and a single page has almost none. Updating them is painful, security tends to be an afterthought, and they generally look like the same template every other service business in your area is using.
If $99 a month is genuinely your budget right now, use one. It beats nothing, and I would rather tell you that than sell you something you cannot afford. Just know what you are getting, and that you will be rebuilding when you outgrow it.
Why WordPress and not something else?
WordPress gives me the deepest set of design, search, and AI-search tools available, and it does not lock you in. If you want a great site from me, that is what I will build it on.
That said, I have expert-level experience with Duda and HubSpot CMS. If your business needs to be on one of those, tell me why and I will quote it separately once I understand the requirement.
Why does the homepage cost more than a service page?
Because the homepage is where every decision gets made — positioning, hierarchy, where the proof goes, what the site sounds like. It also draws the most revisions by a wide margin. Every page after it inherits decisions the homepage paid for, which is why the fourth service page costs a fraction of the first.
Can you just work with the website I already have?
Often, yes. Plenty of sites are perfectly capable containers that nobody ever filled. If yours can hold new pages and let me set them up properly, a monthly plan is a much better use of your money than a rebuild.
What I will tell you honestly is when it cannot. There is no point running content into a site that caps what the content can do.
What do you need from me to quote a migration?
A crawl of the current site so I can count URLs, what platform it is on now, who controls the domain and hosting, and a sense of which pages are worth keeping. URL count is the dominant variable — a twelve-page site and a two-hundred-page site are different projects.
Get a Straight Answer About Your Site
I will look at your website, your Google Business Profile, and your listings, and tell you exactly what I find — including if the answer is that you do not need a new site. No cost, and no obligation to hire me.