Website Redesign: How Often Should It Be Done?
It’s 2017 and websites are considered required for business ventures. Most start-ups make the mistake of not maintaining their sites even if they do have one running. In this fast-paced era, rebranding and redesigning are crucial steps to achieve your company’s goals. People’s attention spans are decreasing and technology is changing fast. From a technical standpoint, the design of a website does affect its lifetime.
There are varying opinions on how often a website must be rebuilt from scratch. Overall, there are still no fixed rules, and deciding when to update and redesign your company’s website should depend on your goals and financial resources. Often, you just simply need a website refresh but not a complete rebuilding process.
Here are some tell-tale signs that you need a website refresh.
- Over 3 years since last update
This is not applicable for all but is a reasonable indicator. If you haven’t tweaked anything from your site in a two to three-year timeframe, then it’s time for an update.
- Changes in your company/brand
If you have introduced a new branding or color scheme, make sure that is reflected on your site. If your company offers new services, update that. Any small change should be updated – whether it’s new contact details, revised pricing, or a brand-new mission statement. The most obvious sign is when a customer contacts you regarding your outdated site information. A rule of thumb is to refresh and update your content every two to three days.
There are some instances which require re-engineering the site from scratch. An example is if your website cannot be accessed properly in mobile devices, or if it was built using Adobe Flash. Your website must adhere to the following guidelines, or else a redesign should happen soon.
- Your website is mobile-friendly.
You can’t expect your viewers to always be on a desktop computer, especially in a time where everyone uses smartphones. The design and coding of your site must be adapted to work on mobile device screens. It’s a serious shame to lose a potential customer because of a nonmobile-optimized site.
- You’re not using Flash.
Apple devices are not compatible with Flash. If your site was originally built with Flash, it’s enough reason for you to rebuild. Flash drastically slows your site down, and even Google Chrome has already been optimized to convert Flash advertisements to a friendlier playback format.
In theory, the employees of your company must be familiar with the content management system (CMS) for your site. Simple updates and site changes doesn’t require a skilled programmer. Also, refrain from using a closed-source CMS because if the company operating it goes out of business, then you’re going to have to rebuild your site from scratch. WordPress and Joomla are some popular, open-source CMS that you can use instead.
Lastly, if you do need a website redesign, consider asking customer opinions. They’ll be able to provide you with what they’re looking for, what seems missing, and what they want to see in your new site.