Your website is one of the most valuable marketing tools your business can have. Presenting visitors with a user-friendly, visually appealing site is important if you want to continually attract visitors and convert them to customers, as well as rank highly in search engines.
As a rule of thumb, marketers and designers suggest a website should be redesigned every 2-3 years with a review of the overall quality of the site undertaken annually. This is to ensure the website effectively reflects the company and is up-to-date with technology, design trends and the competition. As technology and design trends are evolving faster than ever, making the decision of when to redesign versus refreshing your website can be difficult.
The best way to determine if it’s time to undertake a website redesign is to ask the question; is my website generating the expected results?
If the answer is yes, great. However, you shouldn’t give yourself a high-five and slam down a jam donut to celebrate just yet. Instead you should invest in ways to incrementally improve your website through updating content and adding features that enhance the user experience.
If the answer to the question is no, it’s time to consider a refresh or redesign.
The first step in deciding between a refresh or redesign is to analyse the content and design of your website and evaluate whether you need to improve what you currently have or invest in a complete overhaul.
A redesign is recommended if;
- The technology used in your website out of date (TIP: Having a responsive website that adjusts for viewing on different screen sizes is particularly important!)
- Your website is difficult to navigate
- The website design looks dated
- Your website cannot be easily linked to Google Analytics or social media accounts
- Competitors’ websites are stealing your viewers/customers
- The website no longer accurately reflects your business in a design sense
A refresh may be suitable in the short term if;
- Your content (text, photos etc.) is out of date but your website design is satisfactory
- Your ranking in keyword search engine queries is dropping
- You’re not in the financial position to have a new website designed and developed
In any case it is important to update the content of your website regularly. Search engines look for websites that are up to date and producing fresh content. This helps them find and push websites that are old and irrelevant out of search results. If your content is current and relevant, you will appear credible, knowledgeable and successful. Also, if a person lands on your site and it contains information from months or even years ago, they may be unimpressed and choose to go to another site that appears more relevant.
If you are having trouble deciding what would be best for your website, contact us and we’d be more than happy to take a look at your website and offer advice – free of charge.