Name the problem before naming the solution
Write one sentence about what is failing: “Customers cannot send the enquiry form”, “Our service page takes too long to load on a phone”, or “The website still describes services we no longer offer”. Each points to a different investigation.
Low traffic alone does not establish a design problem. Nor does a newer theme automatically fix email delivery, indexing or unclear content. Separate technical faults, the buying journey and the business requirements before comparing proposals.
A targeted repair may be enough when
- A specific function is broken. A form fails, a page returns an error or a browser rejects the certificate.
- The current structure still suits the business. Customers can find your services, contact details and next step once the fault is fixed.
- The problem is measurable. You can agree what success means and repeat the same check afterwards.
- The system can be maintained safely. Your provider can explain the update path and take a usable backup before changing it.
A shop in Cork with a broken contact-page link may need that link corrected. Its county and the age of its colour scheme do not determine the repair. Read what to ask for in a website repair before hiring someone.
A redesign deserves consideration when
- Your services or audience have changed and the current navigation no longer makes sense.
- Customers cannot complete an important journey on a phone, and small adjustments cannot address the underlying layout.
- You need a booking, sales or content workflow that the current system cannot reasonably support.
- Your provider documents an unsupported or difficult-to-maintain setup, and explains why migration is preferable to continued patching.
These are reasons to request a scoped proposal, not proof that any particular rebuild will work. Ask for the expected outcome, what will be retained and how it will be tested. Compare the same requirements across quotes.
Run the checks you can do before a meeting
- Try the most important journey yourself on a phone: find a service, read the details and contact or buy. Note where you get stuck.
- Use the free website speed test. A poor result is a prompt to investigate its findings, not automatic evidence that the whole site needs replacing.
- Run the SSL certificate checker and broken-link checker for specific technical faults.
- Send a clearly labelled test enquiry on your own site and confirm receipt. Follow the missing-enquiry guide if it does not arrive.
- If the concern is search visibility, distinguish indexing from ranking before commissioning design work.
Keep screenshots, page addresses and test dates. Public tools cannot inspect every plugin, confirm backups restore or judge the whole customer experience. Those need separate checks with you or your provider.
Compare the full scope, not just the headline price
Ask a repair provider what fault will be fixed and how they will demonstrate the result. Ask a redesign provider about content, existing URLs, redirects, domain and email settings, access handover and ongoing maintenance. Get any exclusions written down.
Changing page addresses can affect discovery and search performance. A proposal should account for old URLs and redirects where relevant; Google's site-move guidance explains why migration needs planning.
Use the Irish website design cost guide and maintenance cost guide to organise your questions. Cost bands are context, not a quote for your site.
Agree how you will know the work succeeded
Choose checks tied to the original problem: a received enquiry, a working booking journey, corrected links or a repeat performance test. Record the baseline first and test again after the work.
Keep private data and test enquiries out of public demonstrations. Confirm you have access to the site and its backup before work starts. A redesign is a business decision; a technical report helps inform it, but does not replace that decision.