5 Signs Your Interior Design
Website Needs an Update

Your website was perfect when you launched it. It reflected your work, attracted the right clients, and felt like an authentic extension of your studio. But websites, like interiors, need updating. Trends shift, your work evolves, and what felt fresh three years ago can start to feel tired.

The challenge is knowing when it's time. Many designers put off website updates indefinitely, always finding a reason to wait — just one more project to add, just a few more months to see how things develop. But in a visual industry where first impressions matter enormously, an outdated website is actively working against you.

Here are five clear signs your interior design website might need attention — and what you can do about each one.

1. Your Portfolio No Longer Reflects Your Best Work

This is the most common sign — and often the most overlooked. As your skills develop and your aesthetic evolves, older projects can start to feel like they belong to a different designer. Yet they're still sitting prominently on your website, representing you to potential clients.

Think about the projects you completed in your first year or two of business. Were they good at the time? Probably. Do they represent where you are now? Often not. Your style has refined. Your photography has improved. Your understanding of what makes a project portfolio-worthy has deepened.

The problem is that potential clients don't see your evolution. They see every project as equally representative of your current work. When they spot that early project — the one with the slightly awkward colour choices or the amateur photography — they don't think "ah, an early project." They think "is this really what I'd be getting?"

The fix: Be ruthless. Your portfolio should only show work you'd be thrilled to repeat. If a project no longer represents your current direction, remove it. Quality always beats quantity. Five exceptional projects will attract better clients than fifteen mediocre ones.

2. You're Embarrassed to Share Your Link

This is a telling sign — and one that many designers experience but rarely admit. When someone asks for your website, do you feel confident sharing it? Or do you find yourself making excuses — "It's a bit outdated" or "I'm planning to update it soon" or "it doesn't really show my best work"?

Pay attention to that feeling. It's information. If you're hesitating to share your website, there's a reason. Perhaps the design feels dated. Perhaps the content no longer reflects who you are. Perhaps you've grown and the website hasn't kept pace.

Your website should be something you're genuinely proud to share — a place you actively direct people to, not reluctantly mention. It's often the first impression potential clients have of your studio. Every time you share that link with an apology attached, you're undermining your own positioning.

The fix: Trust that feeling. If you're not confident in your website, your potential clients can sense it too. That hesitation communicates something — it suggests you're not fully confident in how you're presenting yourself. Prioritise the update. The relief of having a website you're proud of is worth the investment.

3. It Doesn't Work Well on Mobile

More than half of website visits now happen on phones. In some demographics, it's closer to seventy percent. If your website was designed before mobile-first became standard, there's a good chance the mobile experience is compromised — slow loading times, difficult navigation, images that don't display properly, text that's too small to read.

Your ideal clients are busy people. They might be browsing during their commute, in a waiting room, or in bed before sleep. They're often comparing you to two or three other designers, flicking between browser tabs on their phones. If your website is frustrating on mobile — if pinching and zooming is required, if buttons are hard to tap, if pages take forever to load — they'll move on to a competitor whose site works better.

The mobile experience also affects how search engines rank your website. Google explicitly favours mobile-friendly websites. If your site isn't optimised for mobile, you're likely appearing lower in search results than you otherwise would.

The fix: Test your site thoroughly on mobile. Not a quick glance — actually use it. Navigate as a visitor would. Try to find your contact page. Attempt to view a portfolio project. Read your about page. If anything feels clunky or slow, it needs addressing.

4. Your Services Have Changed But Your Website Hasn't

Designers evolve. That's natural and healthy. Perhaps you've stopped offering a service that wasn't fulfilling — maybe you've moved away from trade-only work, or you no longer do single-room consultations. Maybe you've introduced something new — a VIP day offering, or a focus on a particular type of project. Or perhaps your pricing has changed significantly since launch.

When your website doesn't reflect your current offerings, several problems emerge. You attract enquiries for work you no longer do — wasting both your time and the enquirer's. You miss enquiries for work you'd love to take on because potential clients don't know you offer it. And you appear inconsistent, which undermines trust.

There's also the internal confusion that comes from having a website that describes a version of your business that no longer exists. It makes it harder to explain what you do, because you're mentally navigating between what the website says and what you actually offer.

The fix: Audit your service pages. Are they accurate? Do they describe what you actually offer today? Is the pricing current? Are the processes described still how you work? Update them to reflect your current reality. Your website should describe where you are now, not where you were when you launched.

5. You Can't Update It Yourself

If making simple changes to your website requires technical help or feels overwhelming, something is wrong. You should be able to update text, swap images, and add new projects without needing a developer. These are routine maintenance tasks, and they shouldn't require outside help every time.

A website that you can't easily maintain becomes stale by default. New projects don't get added because it's too complicated. Old information lingers because updating it feels like too much effort. The site gradually becomes less useful and less accurate, a slowly deteriorating representation of your business.

This often happens when websites are built on complex platforms or with custom code that wasn't designed with handover in mind. The original developer understood how it worked, but they didn't create systems for you to maintain it independently.

The fix: Your next website should be built with your independence in mind. A good designer will ensure you can maintain it confidently, provide training, and create documentation. Before signing up for any website project, ask specifically: "How will I update this myself after launch?"

The Compound Effect of Neglect

Each of these signs on its own might seem manageable. But they tend to compound. An outdated portfolio makes you less likely to share your link. A mobile experience that frustrates visitors affects your search rankings. Service pages that don't reflect your current offerings attract the wrong enquiries, which wastes time and energy.

Over time, these small issues add up to a significant drag on your business. You're working harder than you need to because your website isn't doing its job. You're explaining and apologising rather than letting your online presence speak for itself.

When It's Time to Act

If you recognised yourself in two or more of these signs, your website is probably holding your studio back. The good news is that these problems are solvable. Sometimes a refresh is enough — new portfolio images, updated copy, some technical improvements. Sometimes a complete redesign is the right path forward.

A well-designed website isn't just a portfolio — it's a tool that works for you quietly, 24 hours a day. It attracts the right clients and filters out the wrong ones. It answers questions before they're asked. It builds trust before the first conversation. It should feel like an extension of your studio: calm, intentional, and professional.

The investment in getting it right pays dividends for years. And the relief of finally having a website you're proud of — one you actively want to share — is worth more than most designers expect.