After a while websites start to look out-of-date. They also start to become less effective which has a negative effect on marketing.
Once your site is 3-4 years old, you want to start thinking about redesign. In my opinion, 5 years is about as long as any small/medium business website can last without becoming seriously out of date.
Here are 7 benefits of WordPress Website Redesign:
1. Updating or adding SEO pages. Be sure to do keyword research first, when planning a website redesign or new website. A best practice when it comes to website search engine optimization is to have a separate page for each page or a unique keyword on each page. Plan the pages around your keywords and receive more organic traffic to your site.
2. More Available Real Estate – As your website gets older it may start looking very small as monitors keep getting bigger and newer websites have been getting wider. Thus even if your site has a strong design, it starts to look more and more anemic (because it looks smaller.) These days we are designing for a width of about 900-1000 pixils so your newer site will have more room for your marketing message above the fold.
3. Make the Site Mobile Friendly. You want to make sure people can navigate your site on a smart phone as the # of smart phone users and searches is climbing dramatically. Your programmer should code the website site to perform well on various mobile devices.
4. Save Money on Editing – With site redesign your business can implement the WordPress Content Management System. Need for webmaster time decreases dramatically when you can do much of your updates yourself on WordPress.
5. Integrate Social Media or improve integration of social media. Your business or organization many have adopted blogging, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter or Google +. Your older website may predate blogging, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter or Google +. Redesign allows you to integrate social media and / or make them more prominant and upfront on the site. It also shows your firm is embracing social media--using new marketing shows the with-it-ness of your company.
6. Integrating Calls to Action and your company email newsletter. You’ll get a better response to your marketing if you include a call to action. It might be as simple as a button to “request a quote” or “call us now.” Or you could offer visitors a special report by signing in with email.
7. Updating colors and other design aspects. Just as they do in home decor and clothes, colors in web design go in trends. After a few years some colors look out-of-date and updating will help add a contemporary color palette.
Look above to see photos of BEFORE and AFTER versions of the site I'm offering as an example. This site was built in 2004 and done better than most of that age I’d say.
If your business website is more than 4-5 years old, you are probably ready for redesign. Advantages include the ability to update the site in-house, integration of social media and bringing the design up-to-date. Call Karen for WordPress Website Redesign with Almost Everything Communications at 510-527-9920.
