Website Jump Starts without Starting Over

Does your website really need a re-design?
Let's discuss the pros & cons

Website Re-Designs can do harm to an existing website. Re-Designs need to be planned strategically to make sure that a major change to your website would actually solve the problems.

Current customers who regularly use your website will react badly to a re-design if they could no longer find the information they frequently view.  Every Website Re-Design needs to include a statistical analysis of the existing content pages to make sure well performing pages are still available.

When planning a re-design you must also consider the impact to your search engine rankings. If any of the pages of your existing website are currently indexed by search engines,  removing them or re-naming them will cause error messages for searchers and search engine spiders, if not addressed. Re-designs must be carefully planned in order to prevent any loss in search engine position.

Top Five Reasons to Re-design your Website

Here is a list of really good reasons to re-design your website:

1. You receive a lot of negative calls about the website - If you are getting calls from people complaining that they cannot find something on your website or that your website is hard to use, you need to change. Websites should be saving calls or generating calls with more business for you. This website is now costing you money, change it.
    
2. Significant change in your company identity - if the visuals on your website no longer matches what your customers use to identify you, make a change. Customers may be leaving your website because they don't realize it's you.
    
3. Outdated website structure or technology - if your website was created with code that cannot be displayed by current web browser versions, then it is time for an update. If people are having trouble viewing your website, chances are search engines are having problems too.
    
4. Content needs to be re-prioritized - if your current website structure is burying new information at the bottom of your pages, then visitors may not realize new information has been added to your website. Moving updated information to a place of prominence may bring visitors back.
    
5. Website content is very "company" focused - maybe your website audience has left because you had nothing to say that applied to them? Focus your website on your customers and visitors will return.

For more opinions on whether or not to re-design, go to:

• NEW THINKING: Resist redesign by Gerry McGovern
   
• Retaining Traffic after a Web Site Redesign (Search Engine Watch)
   
• Good Designers Redesign, Great Designers Realign (A List Apart)

Would you like help deciding whether or not to re-design?