Knowing When Your Website Needs To Re-Designed
Due to the speed at which the Internet evolves, it is necessary for websites to be regularly re-designed. Bandwidth increases, new technologies emerge, and website users’ expectations change.
Your website is often your company or organization’s first contact with prospective clients, and it is therefore vitally important that it makes a great first impression – anything less and you will be missing out on custom, leads and sales. So, aim to review your website every 6-12 months to ensure that it is in keeping with the current standards expected of websites. The question is then, how do you know if your website is need of an update, or even an outright re-design?
It is best to start with a list of what your website does, or what it is supposed to do, and how well it achieves those objectives. It may be difficult for you to be objective, so talk to a few customers who use the website, or friends who are not familiar with your website and who are not afraid to tell you what they think about it.
Next create a list of of what your web site does not do, either because of outdated design, or capabilities it does not have. List all of the features or capabilities that you would like the website to have. Then, create one sentence which describes the primary purpose of your website and one secondary purpose. Everything on your list should support your primary and secondary purpose.
Try not to get caught up in the mindset that it necessary to totally overhaul the design of your website. Often, making just a few changes, or adding one or two extra capabilities is the best approach to take. If you make changes simply for the sake of making changes then you will just be wasting time and resources. You may also alienate existing customers of yours who may feel overwhelmed and confused when they visit your website after the re-design.
It is important to establish an exact budget, or a budget range for your website re-design. It is good practice to get several bids or proposals for the project before accepting one. You are in a buyers market, and when website design companies know that you are also talking with their competitors, you will often find that the prices that they quote suddenly become very competitive.
