Hello, this is Mikel with Tiny Frog Technologies.
I want to talk a little bit today about the difference between a website redesign and potentially upgrading an existing website.
In some cases, upgrading an existing website is the way to go if it’s a very new website and there’s just minor changes that have happened in the business that need reflected or built into the website.
But oftentimes redesigning the website is a much better approach. We’ll be speaking to one person with a company (typically in marketing) and they’ll say “we really want to redesign a website, but I can’t really get the executive team or the owner of the company to buy into it”. And they’ll oftentimes say to us, do you have ideas or information that we can pass along that help educate them on the differences in why they might go with a redesign?
The main thing is if it’s an older website, we’d almost always recommend redesigning a website. Styles have changed significantly in the last two years. If you have a website that’s even three or four years old, it’s probably dated.
In some cases, many of the people who come to your business will land on your website before they ever contact you. So the website is probably the first thing they’ll see of the business, and it’s probably the most important, or one of the most important areas of the business in terms of putting your best foot forward.
Having the best possible, contemporary quality website can really have a big impact in terms of making a strong impression on your potential clients.
So that’s one thing – if the website is dated, both in style and design and many other things: font, color scheme, information on the site and so on – it would be best to redesign.
Typically, when we look at a website, we’ll give an honest evaluation. Is this something that it should be redone?
Another thing that’s changed a lot in over the last several years is the purpose of a website. A lot of companies are using their website as a lead generator now, but if they have an older website, it probably wasn’t built for converting a lead or generating leads. It might be a strictly an informational site or a brochure website and it’s really not compelling enough and engaging enough, and it’s really not designed to convert that visitor.
If most of your potential clients are going to your website first and your website’s not doing a good job in converting or encouraging them to take a next step it could be a lot of missed opportunity there.
Once you decide you’re going to redo the website, a couple things that we find are really important is to have all the stakeholders involved at least at the main critical touch points in the project: at the beginning and approving major approvals and providing feedback as well.
It’s also important to have a one main point of contact through the process (internally for our clients) that’s driving the project internally, that’s helping to corral the team, is managing the internal timelines, and is gathering the pertinent information as well.
If you’re at a situation you have a website that might be 2, 3, 4 years old and you’re debating whether or not it’s time to redesign the website or potentially just to upgrade it (which is something we do as well), definitely feel free to contact us and we’d happy to have that conversation.
Thank you.
