The questions to ask before you redo your website
Maybe it seems dated. Maybe it doesn't feel true to you. Too boring. Too corporate? Too much like everyone else? Maybe you can’t quite figure out what’s bothering you about your website. But you know it doesn’t look, or feel – or work – the way you want it to.
The people that do land on it and don’t do... well, anything really. No one “enquires now.” No one joins your email list. (You do have a list, don’t you?) Or maybe they do, but they’re not the right fit.
If this is true for your business, your website probably does need fixing. But what does that actually mean? And where do you start?
New photos? A different layout? Should you change the colours? You bookmark sites you like, start an inspiration folder, maybe get a couple of quotes from web designers. It feels like forward motion.
And it is. Looks matter. The first impression people get when they arrive on your website is what determines whether they stick around for more. But people don’t hire you because they like your logo. They hire you because they believe in what you say and they trust how you make them feel.
That’s why a beautiful website can still be bad for business.
Photo by Håkon Grimstad on Unsplash
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How most websites start (and why that matters later)
Here's the thing about a business’s first website: it’s usually built in a bit of a rush.
When you're starting a business, there's a lot of pressure to have something up quickly. A presence. A home base. So you moved fast, with whatever clarity (and budget) you had at that point — which, because it was early on, was still evolving. You built around what you thought your offer was, talking to an audience you hadn’t fully defined yet, in a voice that was still finding itself.
And then your business did what good businesses do. It grew, and it changed. You got clearer on who you love working with. You refined your offers. You found the language that actually resonates when you're talking to real people. That really feels like it reflects the way you work. Everything has evolved in ways you couldn't have anticipated on day one.
But your website didn’t keep up. Of course it didn’t, you were too busy with everything else.
So your website has stayed in that first version, or some patched-together adaptation of it — a bit of the original, a bit of the evolved, none of it quite cohesive. So it doesn't really feel like the business you're running now. It doesn't feel true to you. It’s not bringing you work, and it’s not somewhere you want to send people.
If this is you, you’re not alone. And you’re probably wondering whether it’s even worth fixing. Do you really need a website? You’ve gotten this far, haven’t you?
But oh, the places you can go when you really get it right.
The temptation to ditch it altogether
If the website isn't doing much, but you’re still in business, you’d be forgiven for thinking that maybe you don't need a website after all. Or at least not right now.
Clients are finding you through referrals, through networking, through word of mouth. Maybe LinkedIn is working for you. You use something else for your events and checkout pages.
Why invest more time and money into a website when there are more immediate things demanding your attention?
It's a reasonable question. The problem is that it’s the wrong one. The better question is what you’re missing out on.
At some point, the absence of a solid website starts to cost you. But it’s a quiet cost, because you usually don’t realise it’s happening.
You don’t know about the person who connects with you at an event and then Googles you later, only to click away confused. You don’t realise the warm leads from LinkedIn who wanted to do a bit more research before DM’ing you. You don’t see the potential clients who hesitate to send your website to their colleague or manager as context. You never end up connecting with the people who are looking for help with what you do, but… if only you'd given them something to land on.
At best, scraping by without a proper website is a series of missed opportunities. At worst, it's actively working against you.
What a good website can actually do
Think about what an always-on, works-while-you-sleep sales presence could mean for your business.
A well-built, strategically messaged website is exactly that. It can receive the interest generated by all your other marketing — your LinkedIn activity, your speaking, your networking, your referrals — and turn it into something. It can warm people up before they've even spoken to you. It can pre-sell your thinking, your approach, your personality, so that by the time someone gets on a call with you, they've already more or less decided. In your favour.
It can also bring the right people to you in the first place. The words on your site, when they're the right words, do real search marketing work — appearing when someone types a question into Google or, increasingly, into AI search tools. People who are actively looking for what you offer, finding you, because your website speaks their language clearly enough to make the connection.
A good website is a magnet and a pre-qualifier. You don't have to personally be everywhere, all the time, if your website is doing some of that work for you.
But none of this happens if the website isn't strategic. Not strategic in a complicated sense — just clear. Clear on who it's for, what it says, and what it's asking someone to do next.
The temptation to lead with design
When a website seems like it needs fixing, the first instinct is almost always to consider how it looks. It's the most visible layer, so it feels like the most logical place to start.
And yes — how your site looks matters. Good design creates a first impression that earns you more of someone's time. It signals that you're credible, that you take your work seriously, that this is a real business worth paying attention to. Ideally, it sends a vibe, shows some personality. That's not nothing.
But design can only do so much on its own. Imagine hiring a salesperson who dressed impeccably, gave a great first impression, and then couldn't clearly explain what your business actually sold — or why it was the right fit for the person they were talking to. The presentation would get them in the room. It wouldn't close the deal.
A beautiful website with unclear messaging works roughly the same way. It looks impressive. It may even get you some initial interest. But it can't convert that interest into enquiries if people aren't sure what they're looking at, who it's for, or what to do next.
Donald Miller makes this exact point in Building a StoryBrand: if someone has to work too hard to figure out what you do and whether it's relevant to them, you've already lost them. Before they've even read a word.
I worked with an acupuncturist called Erika who had this situation. Her website had grown up over the years in a fairly piecemeal way — it ended up feeling quite corporate and clinical, not really like her at all. She was warm, grounded, genuinely skilled, and deeply passionate about the women she worked with. None of that came through. The site wasn't speaking to the specific clients she most wanted to reach, in the way they most needed to hear it.
The instinct was that a redesign would fix it. What she actually needed first was a messaging overhaul — clarity on who she was talking to, what they needed to hear, and what made her approach different from anything else they'd considered. Once that foundation was solid, we built the visual identity and website around it.
In the month after launch, site traffic went up 62%. Visits from search doubled. In Erika's own words, people who landed on the site were more prone to booking "because they get the info they need and feel a better connection to me."
The design helped. It was doing the right job because the messaging gave it something solid to build on.
The question worth asking first
So before you brief a web designer or book a photographer, it's worth sitting with a different question. Not "what should my website look like?" but “what does it actually need to DO for my business”?
How do you want someone to think or feel when they arrive?
Who is it for, and what do they need to understand quickly?
What do you want them to do next — and is that obvious enough?
Once those answers are clear and specific, redoing your website can make a huge impact on your business. If they’re not… well, a surface-level redesign might look nice, but it's unlikely to change your results in any meaningful way.
When you’re ready to get your website working harder for you, begin with the message, not the mood board. Because when the meaning is right, that sets the tone for everything else.
