The difference in one paragraph
A rebuild keeps your web address, your content and the search rankings those pages have already earned, and replaces the layout and the code underneath. A new website starts from an empty page. A rebuild is cheaper and lower risk; a new site gives you more freedom. From $400 and from $600 respectively, which is a smaller gap than the difference in work suggests, because the expensive part of a new site is decisions rather than code.
The four questions that decide it
1. Do people currently find you in Google?
Search for two or three things you sell plus your town, in a private window. If your pages come up, you have rankings worth protecting and a rebuild is almost certainly right. If you are nowhere except for your own business name, there is nothing to protect and the choice is purely about what is cheaper to work with.
2. Can you edit your own site today?
If your site was built on a platform you cannot get into, or by a company that charges you monthly for changes, you are usually better off starting fresh and owning the result. We have rebuilt plenty of those, but sometimes the honest answer is that there is nothing underneath worth carrying forward.
3. Is the content still true?
If the words, prices and services on the site broadly still describe the business, a rebuild keeps them and saves you the worst job in web design, which is writing. If every page describes a business you no longer run, you are writing a new site whatever we call it.
4. Do you own the domain?
If the web address is registered to a previous developer or a marketing company, sort that out first, whichever route you take. We can usually trace who holds it and help get it moved into your name. Building anything on an address you do not control is a bad idea.
Choose a rebuild if
- People already find your pages in Google
- The content is broadly still accurate
- The problem is mainly that it looks dated and works badly on phones
- You want the cheapest route to a site that converts — from $400
- You cannot afford for the site to go dark while work happens
Choose a new website if
- You have no website at all
- What you have is a single locked template page you cannot edit
- The business has changed enough that every page needs rewriting
- You want pages for services you have never had pages for
- You are starting out and want it right from day one — from $600
What about my rankings?
A rebuild protects them, if the redirects are done
Every old page gets pointed at its new equivalent, so the credit that page built up carries over. This is the step that gets skipped by people in a hurry, and skipping it is how businesses lose half their traffic overnight after a redesign. Rankings sometimes wobble for a week or two afterwards and then settle.
A new site on the same address starts closer to scratch
If you keep the domain you keep some of its standing, but new pages at new addresses have to earn their position again. Expect a few months. That is not a reason to avoid a new site; it is a reason to know it going in, and possibly to run ads to cover the gap.
A new site on a new address starts from nothing
Occasionally the right move, usually when the business name has changed. Rarely worth it otherwise, and never worth it for the sake of a tidier address.
If you still cannot tell
Send us the web address. We look at the real thing on a phone and on a desktop, tell you which of the two we think you need and why, and quote a flat price for it. If the answer is that your site is fine and your actual problem is that nobody finds it, we will say that too and point you at local SEO instead of selling you a build. Get in touch or call (605) 782-9735.