How Often Should You Redesign Your Website?
What’s the shelf-life of your website?
At efelle, we build our websites to exceed our clients goals and build them to continue to grow with them. But often you see that websites are supposed to be updated every 2-3 years, so what does that mean? Why and what changes?
With most things in our life, there’s an expiration. You change your tires after 50,000 miles, you switch out your water filter every six months, and replace your kitchen sponge once a month. There are things in life that hit a shelf life and thus requires a replacement, and your website is no exception. We’ll often hear things like, “but I just updated five years ago,” to which we have to point out your site isn’t mobile friendly, doesn’t match your brand, and no longer fits your needs…
Orbit Media found that the average lifespan of a website is 2 years and 7 months. That being said, there is obviously leeway and depends on how well your previous site was designed.
Why Do We Feel Pushback?
First off, let’s address the feeling of frustration you may feel when someone tells you to update your website when it’s been 3 years since your last launch. In the ever-changing world of digital, we are used to instant results and things that refresh easily. From swiping our Instagram for fresh content to quickly changing our phone wall-paper for a new look, it’s easy to assume all digital changes are quick and easy, but in reality there’s hundreds of hours behind a more complex digital landscape. Let’s look at some of the factors to take into account when checking the life expectancy of your website.
Factors to take into account for the life expectancy of your website:
Your Business Goals
Over the last year or so we’ve seen a large increase in the number of businesses going from just B2B to B2C or even D2C. With this shift comes a necessary change in the design of your site. Your website should act as the digital front door to your business and tell them about who you are and how you can help them today. If you are continuously offering innovative solutions to your client's problems, then your website should show that. If your goal is to increase phone consultations and your main calls to action point towards filling out a form, then your website isn't going to help you reach that goal. The list of examples can go on, but in the end, you need to sit down and decide if your website is helping you reach your goals.
SEO Standards
The standards for good Search Engine Optimization change quickly and are continually becoming more and more intense. Recently, we see how much site-speed is taken into consideration increase and give the benefit to the faster sites. Simply adding things like meta-tags and keywords aren’t enough-- everything from your code to back links to headings need to be optimized. And let’s not even get started on if your website isn’t mobile friendly.
Changing Trends
For years, single paneled websites were the way to go. Then a few years later, endlessly long scrolling websites grew in popularity, and now? It depends on what your audience expects and wants. Trends change and as timeless as a website design can be, some trends change and need to be updated.
Industry and Competitive Landscape
Are you enviously browsing your competitors websites wondering how many clients they’re probably getting? When the industry has changed, you should adapt before you become outdated. As frustrating as it may seem, potential clients and customers are going to compare your site to a competitors and if they see your competitors site as more professional or better branded, you’re going to lose them.
So, What Can You Do?
Continually listening for feedback and making small changes wherever possible will help keep your SEO strong and your clients and customers coming back for the new content.
When we build websites, we design and build them to grow with the business. With features like adding on landing pages easily, changing out content, and easily making blog, staff, and product updates, having a flexible system can stretch the life of your website.
One final note: if you’re asking yourself if your website should be redesigned… then it probably needs to be redesigned. We can easily run a site audit to check your speed, latest updates, and other factors to help you figure out where you can grow.
Not sure about your website? Want a professional to take a look? Feel free to call us at 206.384.4909 or fill out our form here. One of our Digital Strategists can help walk through a site audit, competitor analysis, and help make any recommendations as you move forward.