One of the most important questions facing any business is how often they should update their website. A business’s website is one of its most important assets. Updating it too regularly or too rarely can have numerous negative impacts on your operations. You should only update your website design when circumstances are appropriate.
Evolving Your First Website
Building your very first business website is a proud moment. Even if your website features the most basic design imaginable, just accomplishing the task of realizing your vision for a business website is incredibly satisfying. But no matter how well you design and build your first website, it’s unlikely to be the best you can do. Most people need at least a couple of attempts to find their feet and produce their best work.
For most business managers, their first major redesign will be an effort to move away from their first attempts and produce something a little more professional. If you are evolving your first website design into something new, you need to identify what elements worked and what didn’t in your initial design.
Most businesses will want to redesign their initial website at some point. Ideally, you should do this as soon as you can afford a professional web designer. Or at least once you have learned the relevant lessons from your previous efforts.
Should You Set A Timeframe?
After the initial launch of your business website, there will inevitably be at least a few areas in which you can make appreciable improvements. However, you shouldn’t upgrade your website just for the sake of it. Instead, you should only upgrade your site when you think there is a compelling reason to do so.
Having an outdated website that you haven’t updated in a long time is a perfectly valid reason to want to produce a new version. But you should avoid building a new version of your website just for the sake of it. Make sure you have a clear objective in mind, and there is a purpose to your upgrade.
Frequent Vs Infrequent Updates
You should update some aspects of your website frequently. However, there are also aspects of your design that you should only alter periodically.
You should frequently update your website’s content, and you shouldn’t be afraid to add new sections or features where it makes sense to do so. However, in terms of large updates to the look and feel of your website, it often pays to take a more conservative stance.
When it comes to making major updates that dramatically alter the user experience, you should only institute significant changes when it makes sense to do so. If you try to push comprehensive updates that completely transform your website too often, you will end up alienating your existing users and deterring new users from becoming regular visitors.
When to Completely Redesign
Making incremental alterations to your website design is one thing. But sometimes, it might be more appropriate to redesign your website from the ground up completely. Only attempt a complete overhaul of your website when there is a compelling reason for doing so. Even if your redesign doesn’t drastically alter your website’s navigation or utility, the simple fact that your website’s aesthetics has changed can put long-time users off from continuing to visit your website.
Most experts recommend undertaking a complete redesign every two to three years, but there is no set timeframe in which you should make these alterations. Some of the most common reasons for a website redesign include:
- Your business growing significantly in a short space of time
- Your business undergoing a major rebranding
- Analytics that show a significant increase in interest in your business
- A major expansion into a new market
- A website that you haven’t redesigned in several years.
What to Consider When Making Major Changes
For example, the Editor X web designer is one of the most versatile Website Design tools on the market. Best of all, after you have built a website using Editor X, you can continue using it to improve your Website Design. Finding the right web design tools is essential for the long-term maintenance of your website. Having the right tools makes it much easier to improve your website over time and build on your initial promise.
The time you spend trying to work out which tools to use to improve your site is time you can’t spend thinking about exactly what you will improve. Once you have found a web design editor that works for you, you should stick with it.
There is no set time period during which you should update your website. Instead, you should reserve your major updates for when you have a compelling reason. If you leave your website unimproved for too long, it might become stale and boring to some users. But being overzealous in your redesigns can be disorienting and end up pushing users away from your site. Stick to making major updates when you have a good reason for doing so.
