When is it time for a Website Re-design

OK, so your small business was among the pioneers in having a website of its own, when many other such businesses around didn’t quite have a clue what the Internet was all about! Surely, you are very proud of being such a forward thinker, a visionary, so to speak—one who could envision and eventually harness the power of the Internet to the maximum.

That said, this is probably a 10-year-old story. Let’s cut to the present. Late starters around you have not only hopped onto the Internet bandwagon by now, but they have done so with some really cutting-edge, sleek websites while your business still has the same stuttering design, look, and feel it had eons ago!

Clearly, there is something amiss, and that something is website redesign.

Yes, a critical part of any business whose online presence significantly impacts its overall traction, especially in a city as dynamic as New York City, is to evolve and re-evolve its website occasionally. It simply cannot sit on its laurels and presume that somehow customers would keep coming back to it, no matter how archaic its website may be. This does not happen…on the Internet, as in life in general, one has to move with the times whereby website re-design becomes perfunctory.

Against this backdrop, let us consider some specific reasons or instances for which a website re-design would particularly be considered as under the cards:

• Dated style – As indicated in the hypothetical instance above, your website could be a decade old, with no change in the style in which information is presented or its overall look and feel, which many would consider old-fashioned.

• New information—As businesses evolve and grow, additional details of significant traction always come to the fore. Taken in totality, this information may have to be presented in an all-new fashion and not simply a new page on your dated website, thus warranting website re-design.

• Added layers of security—Sometimes, it is not just style or even functionality aspects that warrant website re-design; the mere addition of additional layers of protection on your website could mandate a website re-design.

• More control in your hands – Maybe the website, when first designed, gave you little control in your own hands, and now a re-design would give you exactly that!

• Management change/change in tastes and preferences—Every change in management or personnel invariably leads to changes in personal tastes and preferences, website design being a major penchant of many such change agents.

So as you can see, there can be myriad reasons for which a website re-design would be warranted – and essentially a very good idea.