Updating Your Company Website is Like Getting Plastic Surgery. There are Right & Wrong Reasons

Updating your company website can be a long, complicated and at times, costly project. Before you get in to a project of this magnitude be sure you're doing it for the right reasons.

So, what are the right reasons? And what are the wrong ones?

The reasons that mean you should update your website ASAP:

Your website design is not responsive

Back in 2015 Google made changed to their algorithms that favor websites with responsive designs over those without in the search rankings. Do what you need to get your website up-to-date on responsiveness.

Your Website Is Not Intuitive and User-friendly

If visitors leave in frustration after a few seconds you won’t be able to reach your business goals. Do what you need to do to get your website up-to-date on user experience.

For SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) Best Practices

Take stock of how well your content and conversion strategies are doing. Use tools to measure effectiveness and industry benchmarks to understand whether your conversion rates are up to par. You might need to consider hiring a professional to evaluate and improve your metrics.

Pro Tip: Companies that say that "they can get you ranked on the first search results page" are aggressively selling to you. What you want to understand is if you are going to get more traffic to the site (and if so, by how much) and will it effect your bottom line (meaning, more traffic that doesn't convert in to paying customers eventually is worthless).

For Security Purposes

While every website faces cyber-security challenges, it is easier for older websites to fall victim due to their reliance on older ,possibly outdated, technology. You should also make sure your site is using an SSL Certificate and is protected with HTTPS.

Bottom line: If you're not hitting your business goals, or you believe that your website is not living up to its potential, a website update is worth looking in to. That said, start by understanding what is it generating now in terms of traffic, conversions and revenue and do research to understand if there is more potential. You might want to consult with experts and use professional tools for this evaluation. Before going in to a project, take benchmarks and set realistic goals for improvement.

The reasons that mean you need to stop the project and re-evaluate:

You haven’t updated the site in a while

You don’t need a full update just because you haven’t updated in a while. If it ain’t broke; don’t fix it. What you need is some A/B testing. Try testing the Hero mage against another one, test the calls to action, test different navigation options or a different look for your pricing page. Test one element at a time so you you're clear on the cause and effect.

Most importantly, test against what’s already working. Don't know if it's working or not? find someone to help you understand.

Pro Tip: If you're not getting enough traffic to your website to run a proper A/B test, you can try just making the change and sending 100% of traffic to the changed page. If your analytics is properly set up, and you log the date of the change it will be easy enough to revert if your KPIs are negatively effected. Keep an eye on the numbers and as soon as you have data that is statistically significant make the call; keep the change or revert back.

Your site is not visually appealing

Like I’ve mentioned above, a site wide update is a big project and getting into it because you think it not pretty enough is not good idea, IMO. Your better off spending the resources elsewhere. Try a new look for the home page to start, be sure to test it against the current one and go from there. Keep your eye on the relevant ball. Is the site converting? If so, test continuously to meet full potential but don’t fix what ain’t broken.

For the sake of that nagging feeling at the back of your head

Feel like you “just know’ that your site isn’t reaching its full potential? You don’t. Go back to the analytics and try to find the issue. How? That’s a different post – stay tuned.

Each company's a snow flake so when companies say they're planing a website update they mean different things, that range from small updates to a site wide overall. If you're planning on getting in to a big project make sure you're doing it for the right reasons. Be sure to look at the web analytics, size up the site KPIs and see how far you. Don't jump in head first. Always A/B test the changes as you're making them.

Good luck!