Web Site Development Time for a new web site when
"Thanks for all your help with our website and your
suggestions. We get so many comments on our web site.
Web reservations are going great. Your other marketing
advice is working well too!"
Thanks
-Kathy, Innkeeper
Inn at The Rostay, Bethel, Maine
Signs It's Time To Redesign Your Website
By Erin Ferree (c) 2007
Designing your first website is a stressful
undertaking. It requires you to dig deep into your
business in order to write the copy for your site.
You need to work with a designer and go through the
process of creating a site that looks unique and
works well. Plus you'll end up investing a lot of
time, energy and money. And finally, after all that,
you're finished and it's time for the site to go
live. What a relief!
Many business owners go through this same process.
By the time the process is finished, many
entrepreneurs are very glad that it's over - and
don't want to do it again anytime soon.
Unfortunately, websites don't last forever. Even if
you plan your site to work for the current vision
for your business, you can't accurately account for
the entire future of your business.
Eventually you'll have to make some changes to your
website. Some of these changes can be accomplished
with simple maintenance, and by making updates to
your site. But there's only so
far that patching and revising your current
site can go. If your site is particularly outdated,
or if it's not working well for you, it's probably
time to consider a full-scale site redesign.
Some signs that it's time to redesign your site
include:
Your Business Has Changed or Grown
If your business is no longer the same as it was
when you designed your site, chances are that you
should redesign your website to reflect that. If
you've only had a few small changes, you might be
able to just update your current website. But, if
you've changed your business direction, decided to
provide new products or services, or if your company
has grown significantly, it will pay off to redesign
your site. Reconsider how the changes to your
business should be reflected or addressed in the
structure, design and strategy behind your website.
Your Site Looks Like It Was Designed in 1995
Some signs of an outdated web site include: chunky,
slow-loading graphics, old-style "framed" coding,
where the site is divided up into panes that load
separately, little animated cartoon clip-art
throughout the site, and text created as images
instead of in HTML. Having any of these on your site
could reflect poorly on your business, making you
look 'behind the times'. It can also make you look
like you don't care enough about your business or
about technological advances to keep abreast of
them. Keeping your company's website looking modern
will improve its credibility.
The Information on Your Site Isn't
User-Friendly
If you cringe when you read your site text, or if
you regularly get questions on your site text from
visitors, re-structuring your copy or rewriting it
can help to fix these problems. If you've been
adding to your site over time and the navigation has
become unwieldy or confusing, restructuring your
navigation could be another pressing reason to
redesign your site. You want visitors to be able to
easily find their way around your site and to be
able to access all the information you have within a
few clicks. Laying out your site to make that
possible can make your visitor's experience on your
site a lot easier.
You Apologize for the Site When
Referencing It or Handing Out Your Business Cards
Your site should be a source of pride. It should
provide your clients and prospects an easy way to
get a lot of information about your business. And,
if you have to apologize for out-of-date
information, broken images, poor design, difficult
navigation or anything else on your site, it makes
you look unprepared and unprofessional. Make sure
your site is in top shape and looks impressive, so
your clients believe your business is in good shape
too.
You're Not Getting Good Results in the
Search Engines
Poor rankings in the Search Engines can be a result
of not optimizing your site well. Poor search engine
ranking can also be a result of bad design choices
or coding on your site. Make sure that your site
isn't designed using frames and that the text is
coded in HTML. Flash sites are also more difficult
to optimize for Search Engines.
It's Not Bringing in inquiries and Helping
You to Make Sales
If your site was designed long ago, then there's a
good chance that it was designed as "brochureware".
This means that the site was designed just to act as
an online brochure. This was very common a few years
ago, when websites were new. But recently businesses
have realized that a website can do a lot more than
just impersonate your brochure - it can help you
close sales, bring in new prospects and make your
business easier to run. To bring in more inquiries
and make more sales include the following when you
redesign your site:
Calls to action to encourage your visitors to take
specific actions - like purchasing something,
contacting you, or signing up for a newsletter.
Forms, scripts, or programs to make your business
easier - like contact forms, project estimating
tools, and an autoresponder email series that can
help you keep in touch with your clients and
prospects. Including a shopping cart or Paypal
buttons on your site can also help you to make more
sales without any additional work.
Downloadable information packets, articles,
questionnaires and white papers can answer a
prospect's questions about your products or services
and help them to move closer to buying. And, if you
require the prospect to enter their email address or
other contact information, it can help you to grow
your prospect líst as well. These are just a few of
the functions that your site can perform for your
business. To get ideas for other ways that your site
can help you improve your business, look at the
other sites that you visit and note the functions
they perform.
Your Site is Costing You a Fortune to Update
If you're racking up huge bills because of changes
and still have a lot to go, it might be time to
consider a whole site redesign. Make a list of
everything that you want to do on your site and
consult a web designer about redesigning your site
with those changes in mind. Often, if you have
extensive changes to make to your site, it can be
less expensive to just start over.
If your site is designed in Flash or coded in such a
way that you can't maintain it yourself, redesigning
and re-coding your site could allow you to do so.
Having the ability to make changes and update your
own text will let you make revisions quickly, at no
expense. And you can play with your site and make
revisions to see what will work best for your
business and clients.
If your site has any of the problems mentioned here,
it's time to redesign. The steps needed to update
and revise will differ depending on the problems and
issues that your site has - you may not have to
start from scratch. But, do make sure that you
address all of the problems that your site has so
that you won't have to redesign again any time soon!
About The Author
Erin Ferree is a brand identity designer who
creates big visibility for small businesses. Her
workbook, "Design a Website That Works", will walk
you through all of the questions that you need to
answer in order to create the best possible website.
Elf-Design.com Web Workbook.