Many reasons exist for you to consider redesigning your website. Some of them are really good reasons, while others...not so much. If your company website was created in the dark ages of the Internet (such as, say, 10 years ago) then it may well be time to redesign it, simply because it probably doesn’t conform to any of the current best practices. If your website no longer matches your company branding, you're using an antiquated content management system or you need a complete rebranding and repositioning, then yes—it could be worth spending the money to execute a major overhaul and build a great website.
More reasons exist for NOT redesigning a website, however. A bad marriage isn’t miraculously going to improve because a new baby comes along. In the same way, reworking your website won't necessarily solve your business or marketing problems. Here are 4 reasons not to choose a redesign and options you can go for instead.
You’re Bored
Boredom is one of the primary reasons business people decide to revamp a website, and some people get bored faster than others. For instance, if you take a perfunctory look at the site once a week, you might not see anything new after a while. Just because you view your website regularly and see the same information each time doesn’t mean your customers do.
Remember the purpose of having a website? It’s to provide easily-accessible information for current and prospective clients and to give you exposure in the digital marketing world. For a new visitor who is seeing the site for the first time, there’s likely nothing boring about it.
Tip: Rather than spending money on a new website, why not optimize your current site for better user experience by adding fresh content such as business blog posts and downloadable resources like marketing eBooks and whitepapers?
You Need More Web Traffic or Leads
A new look for your site isn’t going to get you more traffic. In fact, it can do the opposite because a new or redesigned site is going to take time to be indexed by search engines. During that time, unless you have the old site running in conjunction (which requires purchasing a new domain name for the new site to run under), users won’t be able to find you unless they type in your actual URL. A new domain means starting over to build up credibility, and it really doesn’t make sense if your objective is traffic. Generating leads from your website depends on the quality of your content and whether it makes users want to give you their information.
Tip: Optimize your existing site for search by checking for best SEO practices, such as keyword usage of 0.5 to 1.5 percent and layout options including the use of headings, tags, images and video. Create opportunities to capture users’ contact information by offering good landing pages, downloadable content, optimized calls to action and links to social media profiles.
You Need to Become More Competitive
Becoming more competitive in your industry is a business strategy, not a website strategy. Even if your competitors have expensive, flashy websites, it doesn’t mean that you'll be competing on their level just by copying them.
Tip: It’s your business that needs to be more competitive, not your web presence. Review your business model, pricing strategies and management policies to determine how you can be leaner and meaner.
Your CEO Tells You To
Let’s face it: CEOs typically aren’t marketers. They're likely proficient in other areas, but many CEOs don't know a whole lot about marketing best practices. So when your CEO looks at your company's website and looks at others in your industry and then complains that yours isn’t "professional-looking" or "interesting" enough, you should ask him to tell you:
- Why he thinks you need a site revamp
- What he wants the site to do that it currently isn't doing
- Oh, and one more thing: How does he know that the current site isn't doing its job
Tip: Do some A/B testing to find out what’s working and improve the performance of things that aren’t up to par—these are usually more likely to be policy and code changes than design problems.
We’re not saying you shouldn’t embark on a website renovation because some sites out there need major changes. All we’re saying is that you should make sure you’re commissioning a new web presence for the right reasons, not the wrong ones. A new site can drain your time and money, and it won't fix a broken business model.
* Image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net
