How Often Should You Redesign Your Website?

Your business website has a major impact on how customers think of your business. In fact, for most online businesses, the website is how clients make their first impression of your business. In order to make a lasting impression, you want to make sure your website is up to date. Remember a website is not a car, which you keep as long as it drives. Keeping an outdated website reflects poorly on your business and will drive potential clients away.

Think about it, would you keep the same marketing scheme for 10 years? Of course, not, you adapt it as time changes and more innovative tactics come about. Therefore, you need to do the same with your website. However, redesigning a website isn’t an easy undertaking. Redesigning every month doesn’t make sense, which might prompt you to ask:

When Should a Website Be Redesigned?

Now there is no definitive answer to this question. It varies from industry to industry. The need for a redesign depends on numerous factors like your competition, business goals, the purpose of the website, and so on. Some businesses can go on for up to 5 years without a need for a new web design while others may need to do it annually.

In order to determine whether your website needs a redesign, you need to ask the following questions:

• Does it still work? There is a specific purpose for a website, does the website serve it or not? If your website’s purpose is to gain visibility for your business, is it being achieved? Are leads still coming in or have the number of leads declined through the years? You need to determine how your website has faired and analyze whether it is on the decline or not. If you notice a drop in leads, don’t always blame your marketing approach, it may also be due to the fact that your website is outdated.
• How do you feel about the site? You need to browse through your competition’s sites and compare them to yours. Check to see if the design, functionalities, and feel of your site is outdated compared to theirs. Even if it isn’t, do you feel that your website can be more innovative and appealing to clients? If your answer is yes, then you need a redesign.
• How mobile friendly is your site? As more users start to access websites on mobiles, it is vital for your business website to adapt. Not only do you need a responsive website but also one that optimizes the site speed for mobile devices. Otherwise, you can lose out on a lot of business.
• Can you easily update content, add blogs? Content marketing is a huge part of SEO. While you may not want to change the design often, you need the to option to add blogs and change the content around to meet your content marketing needs. A CMS based website enables you to do that with ease without the need to know any website languages.

The Shelf Life of a Website

While the above questions will help you determine if you need a redesign or not, there has been research conducted to determine how often firms redesign their site. On average, a company redesigns its website ever 2.66 years. While the data collected was from a specific industry, the time frame for most industries is generally 3 years.

You may even find businesses that are constantly redesigning their website after every year or two. This is because the website shelf life is becoming shorter. With the advancement in technology, how users browse the net, and more innovative website designs, businesses redesign their website to keep up with the changing of times. They need to innovative to ensure that their site is appealing and engaging for visitors.

Whether or not a website needs a redesign shouldn’t solely depend on the number of years on average other firms do it. What you should account for is how your site performs and whether or not the goals you have set out for it are being achieved. Those are the telling factors of your site being in need of a redesign. This can happen a year into a site or a few years down the road.