Time for a Website Overhaul? A Look Into the Redesign Timelines of 6K+ Businesses

Redesigning your website is a great way to get a fresh start. But how do you know when it's actually time to get the ball rolling on an overhaul? 

Many times, a redesign begins when an executive or marketer begins to feel like the website is outdated. This can especially be true if a competitor, or someone in an adjacent industry recently redesigned their site.To help shed some light on how businesses look at redesign frequency, we surveyed 6,000+ HubSpot customers about their redesign plans for the future. The results revealed some interesting trends that should help you determine when to start your own project.

A Look Into the Redesign Timelines of 6K+ Businesses

Of the 6,000+ companies that answered the survey, 57% told us of their plans to redesign this year. That's 3,500 website redesigns from this survey group alone.

Here's the breakdown of specifically when marketers are planning to redesign:

The last time we surveyed our customers, their redesign timeline was within 18-24 months. Why the shift in frequency? Well, when you think about how much your business has changed in that timeframe, this shift becomes much easier to understand. As you learn more about your audience, gather feedback from visitors, and develop a better sense of how certain pages are performing, design needs begin to crop up more often. 

Beyond general redesign timelines, we also looked at how redesign timeframes compare by industry. There were over 40 industries captured in this survey, but here are the top three:

1. Software
2. Marketing Services
3. Consulting / Advisory

How does the redesign timeframe breakdown by industry? Let's take a closer look ...

Software / SaaS

Marketing Services

Consulting / Advisory

What can we learn from these timeframes? How can we apply these findings to our own business? There are a few lessons here, starting with when you can start your next website redesign. Let's dive in.

When Should You Start Thinking About Your Next Website Redesign? 

Of the 40 different industries captured by this survey, software companies are redesigning most often, while construction/building materials companies seem to be redesigning least often.

When should you start thinking about your next website redesign? It depends.

While there's no one perfect universal answer, we'd recommend that you begin planning your redesign anywhere between 90-120 days before you'd like to launch it. Again, this is simply a general guideline. The larger -- and more complex -- your plans are, the more time you should allow. 

To get a better sense of timeline, we'd recommend defining your strategy and then determine your goals of the new website. Once you nail down your goals, you can begin to plan your redesign needs and develop an approximate sense of timeline.

There's a Better Way to Redesign Your Website

Many website redesigns take 3-4 months, have a moderate up-front cost, and don't guarantee success. In fact, 1/3 of marketers are unhappy with their last website redesign. 

Growth-Driven Design helps address many of these key issues with a traditional website redesign, and ensures that your next website will be connected to -- and help drive -- results.

This approach to design fundamentally starts with an initial version of your new website, and layers in testing and heatmapping. This allows you to quickly iterate from the feedback you are receiving. For example, let's say you're a software business looking to drive trials of your product through your homepage CTA. To get the best results, you could test CTA colors, location, size, and so on, and make a design decision based on the results. 

In other words, your redesign will truly never be complete. Instead, you'll be continuously iterating based on data from visitors to ensure that you're delivering the best experience possible. Pretty cool, right? (Learn more about Growth-Driven Design (GDD) here.)