Website Redesign Cost: Navigating the Expenses

A website is the forefront and first node of interaction with clients for any business—the virtual front, which delivers the first look and info about any company in the shortest time. Since the first impression is the last, a business’s website must be aesthetically appealing and user-friendly.

According to a survey conducted by WebFX 75% ,  of the credibility of any website comes from its design. A website should do away with its old website if it’s not performing well. There are a few metrics that can help businesses decide whether or not to invest in website redesigning or not. Before we study such metrics, let’s first look at the website redesign process and its different categories.

What is Website Redesigning?

Website redesigning is the process of rebuilding a website in its entirety or smaller parts. One can opt for specific categories of redesigning based on their requirements.
These are :

Remodeling websites

Remodeling a website is a sure-shot way of increasing traffic and is designed to achieve the best conversion of visitors to the website to potential customers and buyers. Remodeling of websites entails high-level changes that involve changing certain elements, such as your website’s content, code, structure, and visuals. Remodeling a website often leads to better revenue streams, lower bounce rates, and new and improved user experience.

Rewiring websites

Another option for businesses looking to revamp their website is to rewire it. Rewiring a website usually means updating its backend services using the latest technologies. This helps companies to gain competitive leverage and provides better accessibility and security to employees and customers. Using the latest feature-rich content management systems, one can achieve even better outputs in revenue and marketing efforts. However, it is a little pricey compared to redecoration, as specific fees get levied through subscriptions, plugins, and other technical components.

Redesigning elements

Redesigning usually refers to changing a website’s visual elements to increase its appeal. Developers and UX/UI designers redesign the details by changing the layout, logo, color themes, etc. A simple facelift of the website can be a quick and cost-effective way to generate revenue and better website traffic.

Rebuilding websites

Ancient websites with meager traffic need more than just tweaking the website. Businesses can rebuild websites from scratch, although it can be heavy on the pocket of companies. Rebuilding sites is similar to creating a new website and costs just as much. The process revolving around rebuilding websites requires web developers, development teams, tech stacks, and everything needed for website development.

Benefits of website redesign

Website redesigning offers many benefits, taking care of bugs and failures, improving performance, and enhancing the overall user experience. Below are few key benefits of redesigning a website a business can :

1 . Improved User Experience (UX)
The first and foremost advantage of redesigning websites is optimizing navigation, layout, and overall usability, resulting in a more intuitive and interactive experience for visitors.

2. Better aesthetic and Appeal
A fresh design with modern aesthetics has revived many dying websites. A visually appealing website is bound to capture visitors’ attention and is crucial in building the brand identity of any organization.

3. Mobile responsive design
It is essential for a website to be mobile-responsive to ensure that it functions on various devices. This also makes accommodating more users easier once the company expands, thus providing scalability.

4. Increased Conversions
 A user-centric design, clear CTAs or calls to action, and streamlined processes have led to higher conversion rates. Simplifying purchase tasks facilitates a customer’s purchase and reduces abandoned carts online.

5. Improved SEO Performance
Another notable benefit of website redesign is better search engine ranking. This is because a redesigned website will be crafted to follow the best SEO practices in improving search engine metrics, such as

a. Page load speed
b. Mobile-friendliness,
c. Content optimization,
d. Backlinking
e. And traffic

6. Trendy and advanced websites
Redesigning websites allows a website to adopt current design trends. It appears modern and maintains a contemporary look and feel. Also, the latest technology integrated within a redesigned website enhances security, performance, and compatibility with the latest web standards.

7. Alignment with Brand Evolution
When a brand evolves or undergoes identity changes, a website redesign helps introduce the new identity quickly and conveniently to customers.

8. Competitive Edge
A well-equipped website helps any business gain a competitive edge in the online landscape. From increasing traffic and ranking better on search engines, a well-maintained and designed website gives a company a lot of leverage over its competitors.
Better Analytics and Tracking: Many advanced analytics tools enable accurate tracking of user behavior and website performance, providing valuable insights in the long run.

9. Social media presence
Redoing a website provides an opportunity to integrate social media channels and elements that often need to be present in old websites. This improves engagement with customers and fosters more excellent connectivity.

Website redesign steps

Before a business looks to redevelop or redecorate its website, there are four more critical components of its website that it must study thoroughly. These components are:

• Usability
• SEO metrics
• Conversion
• Content

These components are great metrics to start your redesigning process with. Just following a few simple steps can help catapult businesses and their growth.

Analyze, Analyze, and Analyze

Before a business starts redesigning its websites, it must first study all existing site performance metrics and identify the lagging areas that need to catch up. Performance metrics such as page loading speed, navigation through the website, and conversion ratio are a few parameters that can give gainful insights into which areas need improvement. A website audit helps identify the weaknesses in the website.

For example, for a food delivery website, high loading speed, user-friendly interface, quick checkout, and real-time smooth tracking are a must. Therefore, redesigning such a website should focus on these aspects to better cater to their customers in the long run.

Target Audience

Usually, when businesses change their brand identity, it also changes their demographic. For example, A cosmetic company like Loreal was initially catering to upper-class, middle-aged women until a decade ago when it changed its demographic to working women and young women in their twenties. This resulted in a completely different company aesthetic, both online and offline.

Businesses rebuilding their websites to accommodate newer brand identities must also identify whether or not their target audience has changed. User personas are another great way to tailor a redesign of a website.

Competitor analysis

Website study of competitors can also provide insight into the latest trends and practices in website design. Knowing what competitors are doing and delivering better than that is crucial in gaining growth and revenue in the long run. Keyword usage, backlinks profile, SEO rankings, and content analysis are ways to measure competitors’ website performances.
Content Strategy
The success of a website is also defined by its content, and a correct content strategy can make all the difference. Content strategy for rebuilding an existing website should include the following

• A brand persona that connects with viewers
• Effective Email marketing
• High-volume keywords within the content
• Proper SEO practices

Information Architecture, Prototyping and Design Mockups

The next step is to plan the site’s structure, navigation, and layout. One can consider flows for easy navigation across the website. At this stage, iterative testing is crucial and can help improve a website’s performance in the long run by avoiding potential failures.

Development and Content Migration

Once a mockup is decided upon, the next stop is choosing a development platform such as Drupal, WordPress, etc., or outsourcing to web developers. At this stage, implemented designs are approved and integrated with necessary features, followed by tests for responsiveness, cross-browser compatibility, and adaptability.

Content Migration includes migrating existing content and data to the new website. It is essential to ensure all multimedia is transferred safely and securely.

SEO Optimization

The last step before launch is optimizing the new website before it is launched. It can be optimized for search engines by updating meta tags, URLs, keywords, and other SEO elements. This is bound to improve the website’s ranking in search engines.

Launch and Post-launch Evaluation

Last, it is essential to time the website launches correctly. In case of issues, they must be dealt with simultaneously. Once the website is launched, it is equally imperative to monitor website analytics and assess performance repeatedly.

How much does it cost to redesign a website in 2024?

The average website design cost for small businesses is around $5000-10000, depending on the size. More complex websites with newer features and technologies cost as much as $15000-20000.

There are different cost tiers involved in redesigning a website:

• Tier 1: $100 – $1,000 website
• Tier 2: $1,000 – $5,000 website
• Tier 3: $5,000 – $15,000 website
• Tier 4: $15,000 – $50,000 website

The price also depends on the size of the website.
A website with 0 to 50 pages usually falls in tier 1 and tier 2 while a medium-sized website falls between tier 2 and tier 3. A large website with 200+pages falls in the tier 3 and tier 4 bracket and can cost a lot more.

Factors affecting the cost of the website

Apart from the number of pages many factors decide the cost of the website.

• Number of pages
• SEO elements to be optimized
• Website is designed for which device or platform
• Backlinking profile
• Integration of specialized features such as CRM, ERP etc
• Is the website open source or does a commercial license need to be purchased?

Many such factors further decide the costs of a redesigned website and can increase the cost by leaps and bounds.

Recruiting for Website Redesigning projects

There are a few ways one can redesign a website or recruit someone to do the same. The first way is the traditional DIY.

Self redesigning process

There are quite a few tools in the market that can help redesign a website on one’s own. Open Source online tools such as Figma, Wix, Canva, WordPress, etc allow users to redesign their websites. It is easier but can be risky if the website is the only source of revenue.

Hiring a freelancer

A small freelancer can help redesign a website at a Tier 1 or Tier 2 price. Many websites allow businesses to get in touch with freelancers thus providing redesigning services at an affordable price. However, it is important to select the freelancer with careful consideration of their past projects and portfolio.

Hiring a web design agency

Though expensive but safe, hiring a web designer or a reliable UI/UX Design Services Agency is the best option for big businesses looking to revamp their old websites. With a lot of experience under their belt, web development agencies can guide and execute the redesigning process with ease and deliver world-class quality.

Final Words

Responsive website design service costs are bound to reduce even further as the demand increases, as do the web development companies offering the services. The competition is more than ever, so it becomes a bit difficult for businesses to find a reliable web development firm that can offer them consistent quality services.

OpenXcell is a reliable UI/UX Design Services Agency offering excellent website redesign services. The company has helped many organizations improve their websites and revenue while helping achieve their website vision and performance. Its roster of 700+ happy clients is a testament to its quality and commitment to quality solutions.