When is the right time to redesign?

No website lives forever, at some point in its life it will be replaced by a younger, sexier model. If you look after your website and don’t leave it to stagnate you can hold this back but it’s inevitable that at some point replacing your website is the only course of action.

The web is a fast moving and competitive place to do business and it’s easy to get left behind. Whether this happens or not a company will usually make the decision to commission a new website when they feel the look of the website is outdated or if they’re returning to a website after a long time away.

Whether it’s these reasons or something else entirely the decision to redesign must be one that is warranted. Redesigning on a whim makes it difficult for the new website to make the kind of big improvements necessary to justify the additional investment.

Reasons for getting a new website

Outdated look

What is seen as an outdated look on a website really differs depending on who you are. As we work in design we notice small changes and trends that can lead to a website feeling outdated very quickly. Meanwhile the general populous will use what their competitors are doing as an indicator to what looks good. Though it differs depending on the market most would begin to see a difference every 2 years.

Simply feeling a site is looking a little old is a weak reason to justify a redesign. If this is the sole reason for a redesign it should be backed up with data showing that the look of the website is affecting users, normally by an increase in bounce rate, lower conversion rate or poor results against direct competitors.

One exception to this is where your business depends on a website adhering to the most up to date trends. The Bronco website is one such example where our website must be representative of the level of work we produce and so use the most modern of techniques available to us.

Rebranding

Another exception is where a company has undergone a rebranding exercise. A website should align, as much as possible, with the rest of a company’s marketing materials, such as offline advertising. This is to provide a consistent look that customers know and understand as well as to ensure brand recognition.

When a company alters the design of its logo, other marketing or restructures and redefines the general ethos of the company then a website should be altered to reflect these changes. Though some changes could be made to an existing website, wider offline changes necessitate a full redesign. This allows an agency like Bronco to perfectly capture and integrate these changes into the website so that it informs people about a company not just through its content but also its design.

New solutions to new problems

Design isn’t simply about the look of a website, if it was Web Designers would be called Web Artists. Design is instead about providing visual solutions to problems. As a company changes their web requirements a website needs to change and thus new problems arise. If the requirements stay the same then the design still remains as good as ever, even if the look becomes dated. What begins as good design will never become bad design over time, it’s just better solutions might emerge.

New problems require new solutions and many of these can be implemented within an existing website but at times some problems are too great and require a new website. In some circumstances numerous additions can also warrant a degree of redesign to provide a solution that best serves all the requirements in a more harmonious way.

A new website plus

Designing and building a brand new website that never existed brings more problems than if you’re redesigning a pre-existing website. When redesigning a website it’s much easier to understand potential problems and also use collected data to inform the choices that are made. In making a new website from scratch this information does not exist, research helps but some decisions become ‘best guesses’.

Within the initial year of a new website it can gain numerous additions as a company expands both its website and its business. These additions and the greater amount of data available from having a live website can be used to great effect to improve the website by revisiting the design after it has been live for around a year.

This could be in the form of a review of the website or involve redesigning sections of the website. It may seem crazy to splash out again on a website that is only a year old but the data and knowledge gained in that year can be used to improve your site immensely. Waiting those few years until the time seems more suitable could be a wasted opportunity.

No Guarantee

These are just a few examples of why it might be time to redesign your website. A redesigned website is never a guarantee of increased revenue or engagement of users. If the data proves users have issues with your website then it becomes more likely that a new website will provide positive results.

Teaming up with the right web agency and gathering extensive data about how people use your website are the first steps to ensuring that any new website you commission has the best chance of raising your business to the next level.