Nine times out of ten, a client who wants a new website is asking for the wrong solution. The real issue is almost always upstream — in strategy, positioning, or the story they're telling.
Every week, someone emails me wanting a new website. They've been on their current one for two years, traffic is flat, conversions are down, they're embarrassed to send it to a prospect. They've decided: the website is the problem.
It almost never is.
What's actually broken
When I take a hard look at these situations, the website is usually doing exactly what it was designed to do — it's just that what it's designed to do isn't what the business needs. The positioning has shifted. The audience has changed. The product has matured. The website is still telling the old story.
So the client spends $40,000 on a redesign, gets something beautiful, and six months later the traffic is still flat. Because nothing upstream changed. The website was never the problem — it was a symptom.
The best website in the world can't rescue a positioning problem. It can only make it look prettier.
What to fix first
- Who is this actually for? — not 'everyone'
- What do they need to believe before they buy?
- What does your product let them do that they can't do anywhere else?
- Why should they trust you over the five other options?
Answer those four questions honestly and the website becomes obvious. Ignore them and no redesign will save you.
This is why we don't take briefs that start with 'we need a new website.' We start with 'what's happening in the business?' The website is a delivery mechanism for an answer. If the answer isn't clear, the mechanism is irrelevant.