When a website starts to feel dated, the instinct is often to scrap it and start again. However, a full website redesign is not always the right solution, and not every business has time and capacity to engage in it. It is also not always necessary, there is a quicker and simpler solution – a website refresh. A refresh is like a facelift: you have the same structure, the same content, the same products, but everything is presented with a clearer, more modern interface.
We recently ran exactly this kind of project for Jars & Bottles, part of Pattesons Glass Ltd. Here’s why it was needed, what we changed, and what happened to the numbers in the first month afterwards.
Why the site refresh was needed
While the product range and the site architecture were all working well on the old version, the site itself looked dated and tired. There was also potential for improving the user experience and fresh more vivid visuals. The client wanted a clear and trustworthy look with clean product and information sections and relevant visuals supporting the main message.
The KPIs to measure the impact of the site refresh
Before starting, we agreed on the two metrics that actually reflect on-site experience:
Conversion rate – the proportion of visits that result in a purchase
Average engagement time per session – how long visitors stay meaningfully engaged once they land
A visual refresh can’t influence how many people search for or click through to a site, that’s a function of SEO, paid media and demand. But it can influence what happens once someone arrives. That distinction shaped both the brief and how we’ve measured the result.
What we changed
The refresh focused on decluttering and establishing a clearer visual hierarchy, without changing the underlying site structure or product catalogue:
Header and navigation
Both the header and navigation have been simplified from a dense top bar (search, Trustpilot rating, account, basket, full text navigation, plus a highlighted promotional link) down to a clean header with a collapsed menu, search and account/basket icons. This has reduced the number of competing elements above the fold.
Hero section
What used to be a static three-tile promotional grid where each tile had its own heading, subheading and button has been replaced with a sliding hero carousel. The carousel represents a sequence of full-bleed lifestyle photographs, each showcasing one of the site’s main product categories and one or two focused calls to action per slide. Rather than presenting several offers at once, it leads with one category at a time.
Category navigation
We have replaced small individual product thumbnails in a dense grid with larger, image-led category cards so that now more of the navigational work is done visually rather than relying on text links.
Colour and visual treatment
Colours and visuals have been moved from flat, block-colour promotional tiles to a single, more restrained palette built around one accent colour and real photography. The old homepage leant on colour blocking to divide the page into sections; the new one uses one full-bleed lifestyle photograph to set the tone instead, with white and dark-navy used sparingly for text and buttons rather than as competing background colours. Instead of three colours competing for attention across separate panels, the homepage now uses one accent colour and a single photograph so there’s one place for the eye to land first, not three.
Overall density reduced throughout: fewer simultaneous offers and trust badges competing for attention on the homepage, in favour of a calmer, more premium presentation.
The result is the same business, the same range, just easier to look at and navigate.
The result in KPIs
We only used metrics that are normalised per visit. Raw totals such as total purchases, total revenue, total sessions are affected by how much traffic arrived, which a homepage refresh has no control over. Conversion rate and average engagement time per session are calculated per visit, so they reflect visitor behaviour rather than visitor volume.
We compared year-on-year, not month-on-month. Jars & Bottles’ business has a seasonal shape to it so comparing the month after launch to the month before would mix up seasonal demand with the effect of the refresh. Comparing August 2026 (post-refresh) against August 2025 (pre-refresh) removes that variable.
We matched by day of week, not just by date. Weekday and weekend traffic behave differently, so the comparison period was aligned by day of week rather than raw calendar dates, to avoid one period simply having more high-traffic days than the other.
KPIs data from GA4: August 2026 vs August 2025
What happened
The new homepage went live on 30 July 2026. Comparing August 2026 against the equivalent, day-of-week-matched period in August 2025:
Site-wide conversion rate rose from 3.48% to 4.63% – up 33.2%, despite overall traffic being flat to slightly down over the same period.
Average engagement time per session rose from 1m 38s to 1m 49s – up 11.8% – site-wide.
The takeaway
A full redesign has its place when a site’s structure, technology or positioning genuinely needs to change. But a lot of the time a much simpler job of decluttering and cleaning up can produce a big effect. In this case, a focused visual refresh – same structure, same catalogue, clearer presentation – was enough to move the metrics that matter most: whether visitors stay engaged, and whether they buy.
If your site is starting to feel behind the times but everything underneath it still works, a refresh may get you most of the way there for a fraction of the cost and disruption of a full rebuild.
Interested in giving your site a facelift? Get in touch and let’s discuss it today.
