When Should You Redesign Your Website?

The great thing about a well-designed website is that it can breathe new life into your web presence, and by extension, into your whole business.

The nature of the Internet, though, means that no website stays great for more than a few years, tops. Some of the site’s original luster and strength does wear off over time. It’s the reality of participating with the world online: change happens faster in the 21st century.

So when it comes to the frequency of changing your website’s design, you might find yourself asking, “What’s the magic number?” Well, there isn’t one. But for starters, take a guess and cut that duration in half.

In some industries, a new site design is just about obsolete after 12 months, while designs in other industries can maintain their usability and visitor appeal for as long as 4 or 5 years. Most businesses and non-profits are somewhere in the middle.

No company, however, is immune to the reality that the Internet is changing all the time—sometimes faster than we want it to.

The design and functionality that encouraged your visitors just a few years ago to spend long periods of time on your site, exploring more of your products and services, probably isn’t doing a lot for your on-site activity today. In fact, some site designs that get left behind by their owners can actually work against that organization’s goals in the long run.

The average website should have its look and design updated about every 3 years. How do you know if it is time to renew, change and rejuvenate your marketing message?

1. Old Design: Styles change and evolve with time. Older looking websites will date your business as not keeping up with the times. 7-10 years ago websites were designed for smaller monitors, many were full width and many had simple boxy looking designs.
2. Uncompetitive Design: Look at your competition and compare your design to theirs. Do you appear like a leader in your niche? If you are a local business such as a restaurant or a medical office, compare websites with similar sites in other cities.
3. Changed Strategies: Do you now have new business goals, strategies or products? Are you selling to the same market niche? You will need to update your website if your business direction has shifted.
4. Not Converting: If your website is not generating leads or sales, then you may need to start over. Does your website answer the questions your visitors are trying to find? Do you have a clear offer and action that your visitors are guided into? Top producing websites are designed to be selling machines.
5. No Traffic: Your website design may be preventing your website from being ranked well on the search engines. Perhaps your website was designed all in Flash? Maybe you never optimized your website for keyword phrases? Search engine optimization or SEO is an important part of generating business. After all, with no visitor traffic, you will generate no sales.