7 Questions to Ask Before You Redesign Anything

Why Most Homepage Redesigns Miss the Mark

Homepage redesigns often start with the same trigger: “It feels outdated.”

And while design freshness matters, that instinct alone isn’t enough to justify a rebuild.

From a development perspective, the biggest risk isn’t visual failure—it’s rebuilding something without understanding what already works. A homepage is not just a canvas; it’s a system. It supports navigation, conversion, performance, SEO, and trust. When you redesign without asking the right questions, you risk breaking that system.

Before touching layouts or color palettes, run your homepage through this test.

Question 1: What Is This Homepage Actually Supposed to Do?

This sounds obvious, but it’s where most teams struggle.

Is your homepage meant to:

• Educate new visitors?
• Drive leads?
• Route users to key services?
• Build credibility quickly?

If the answer is “all of the above,” that’s a red flag. A homepage needs a primary job, with secondary support roles. Google prioritizes clarity of intent, and so do users. Pages that try to do everything often fail at the one thing that matters most. (Google Search Central)

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Question 2: What Are Users Actually Doing Right Now?

Before redesigning, look at behavior—not opinions.

• Where are users clicking?
• Where are they dropping off?
• Which sections get attention, and which get ignored?

Tools like Google Analytics and heatmaps often reveal that users rely on very specific elements—navigation, hero CTAs, or service summaries—even if the design “feels old.” Removing or deprioritizing these without data-backed reasoning is one of the fastest ways to hurt conversions. (Nielsen Norman Group)

Question 3: Is the Problem Visual—or Structural?

Sometimes the homepage doesn’t need a redesign. It needs a restructure.

If messaging is unclear, content hierarchy is weak, or CTAs compete with each other, changing colors won’t fix it. From a development standpoint, structural improvements—better content flow, clearer headings, improved navigation logic—often deliver bigger gains than a full visual overhaul.

Google reads structure first. Users feel clarity first.

Question 4: How Does Performance Factor Into the Redesign?

This is where development must lead.

New designs often introduce heavier images, animations, or third-party scripts. Without performance guardrails, redesigns can slow pages down—hurting SEO, accessibility, and user trust. Google has made it clear that Core Web Vitals are ranking signals, not suggestions. (web.dev)

If your redesign doesn’t include performance benchmarks, it’s incomplete.

Question 5: Is the Homepage Built for Scanning, Not Reading?

Most users don’t read homepages—they scan them.

Clear headings, concise sections, and predictable patterns help users decide quickly whether they’re in the right place. When content is buried inside long paragraphs or overly clever layouts, users bounce before understanding value. (Nielsen Norman Group)

A good homepage respects attention. A great one earns it.

Question 6: Does This Redesign Support SEO—or Complicate It?

Redesigns often disrupt SEO unintentionally.

Changing heading structures, removing keyword-relevant sections, or altering internal links can weaken rankings if not handled carefully. From a development lens, redesigns should preserve—and strengthen—semantic structure, internal linking, and crawlability.

SEO isn’t something you “add back” after launch. It must be part of the redesign conversation from the start. (Moz)

Question 7: What Does Success Look Like After Launch?

A redesign without success metrics is just a guess.

Before you redesign, define what improvement means:

• Higher conversion rate?
• Faster load times?
• Better engagement?
• Clearer user paths?

When success is measurable, design and development decisions become strategic—not subjective. And post-launch optimization becomes possible instead of reactive.

A homepage redesign should never be driven by trends alone. The best redesigns are grounded in understanding—of users, data, performance, and purpose.

Ask the hard questions first. Let strategy guide design. Let development protect performance. That’s how redesigns turn into real progress.

👉 Thinking about redesigning your homepage?

Explore our Development Services to see how we approach redesigns with clarity, performance, and long-term growth in mind.