Is Periodic Website Redesign a Waste of Money?

Every few years organisations undertake yet another website redesign project. But is this the right approach or is there a better way? Written by Marie Boulton, jerram.co.uk. Jerram Marketing is a team of four highly experienced marketing, design and development professionals. Formed in 2006 they bring over 60 years of combined experience and are each highly trained in specialist areas. Image courtesy of PixelsAway via Bigstockphoto.

Is Periodic Website Redesign a Waste of Money?

Ok, so as a Digital Agency, I probably shouldn’t be putting into your mind that you don’t need to periodically redesign your website. After all, we make money by you needing a new website. But don’t you think it would be better and easier for both parties if your Digital Agency created a website that could be easily updated and kept up with the times? Instead of having to have a whole new website created every couple of years?

The Short Life of a Website

This article is probably already resonating with you. You launch a new website, it’s all shiny and new and looks great. They give you some tips and tricks to keep it going; how to upload content and how to change some font. Then slowly over time, you get overrun with everyday work, your website takes a backseat and the next time you look at it, it’s like Dorian Grey looking at the painting of himself.

Everything looks dated and the technology used was dropped in the early 2000’s. Your staff stop utilising the website as a sales tool. And those clients who do make it to your website? Well, they leave you a note telling you they’ve left, and your heart is broken.

So, what do you do? Well, you go to a Digital Agency and you ask them to build you a new website. And as predicted, this pattern is repeated over and over again. Money just chucked into numerous websites, none outliving the last.

Time to Try Something Different

But how’s this for an idea – why don’t you ask your Digital Agency to make you a website that can be kept up to date? In fact, why don’t you ask them to create a website that they can help keep up to date? (take a look at our article about the importance of website support and maintenance).

For a start, your website will always be performing at its maximum capacity; to put it into perspective, a Digital Agency that can maintain a 99.99% uptime (like us!) means that your website will only have downtime for 9 hours in the entire year. With 1% of the top 100,000 websites working on less than 99% uptime, they’re losing 36 DAYS of uptime a year! (click here to work out what your uptime percentage is). Can you really afford to have your website down for over a month a year?

It’s Probably Not As Much As You Think

You might think it would be cheaper not to keep a web design agency on retainer. But consider this: how does their cost per month retainer fee compare to the cost of a new website every few years? How much have you spent on website redesign in your business life? They will always be on hand to fix any problems you have. They will know the website (and the business) inside out and importantly, you’ll know them well too.

So next time you think you need a new website, talk to your Digital Agency about what they would suggest. It might be that your website is beyond saving and you do need a new one. But even if you just need it to be redesigned, ask about website maintenance and support, you won’t regret it.