How Often Should You Redesign Your Website

A question that frequently gets brought up is, how often should we redesign our website. If you talk to 7 different people, you would get 7 different answers. None of the answers that you would receive would necessarily be wrong, but you would be left without clarity, still asking yourself that question. Now, what is our answer to this question? Simple. You should redesign your website when the time is right. Now you may be scratching your head, thinking “great another round about answer” but its true. The time may be right a year, 2 years or even 3 years out, but a good rule of thumb is to redesign your website when the site no longer meets your company objectives, or is not meeting its overall expectations.

not meeting objectives

If your websites main objective is to capture leads, so outside sales reps can make phone calls, but it takes 3 clicks in different areas to get to the contact form, you may need a redesign. If you notice a significant trend in mobile users visiting your site, yet your website is not mobile friendly, you may need a redesign. If your website is made up of 80 percent images, 20 percent text, and you would like to rank better in organic search, you may need a redesign. Is this starting to make sense? Your website should always align with company goals and objectives that can be measured and analyzed.

in a time long long ago…

When we receive an inquiry for a redesign, the first question we ask is “why?” Most of the time, the client tells us, it is because the site reflects a period of time, long long ago. While we believe its important your site looks current, you may not always need a redesign, especially if its performing well. If its not broke, don’t fix it. You may actually cause more harm than good. Keep in mind when you redesign your website, if you are performing well in organic search, you may possibly lose rankings depending on the structure of the site and if significant changes were made to the copy. It also depends on the industry your business in. We designed a website, for a nationwide leading manufacturer of waste & recycle bins, in 2009. While the site looks grossly outdated, it performs well, is built for its demographic, and does its job. When we did a follow up in 2011 asking our clients if they want to go mobile, this same client said, and ill paraphrase, “no, we sell dumpsters…” and he was right.

if you say yes…

If you have determined that its time for you to redesign your website, its a great time to do some measuring and research. Hopefully your site has google analytics built into it. Take advantage of this. Try and figure out what worked, what doesn’t work. Where are your visitors going when they visit your site, are they converting to sales, or are they dropping off at a certain point. Data is key, so measure wisely. Also look ahead at what the competition is doing. Maybe you see that a competitor down the street now takes online appointments or orders. See what the order process is like, can you improve it and build something similar into your site?

There are a lot of reasons you may want to redesign your website, just make sure you have a valid “why” as in doing so.