Do Good Design

You’ve got a website that you’ve had for a while, but it’s just not giving you the results you were hoping for.

Maybe it started well at first, but has petered out in the last several months. Or worse, maybe it never did what you wanted it to do in the first place.

Here are 4 sure signs it’s time to salvage what you can of the old site and get on to the new:

1. You think “I should really put this information on the website” and you don’t because it’s too much hassle

Do you have to go through your web designer to update your site, or use something complicated like Dreamweaver or Frontpage?

It’s hard enough keeping your website updated without having to wrestle technology, so invest in a Content Management System (CMS). A CMS allows you to instantly update your website without knowing any HTML.

We automatically put CMSes into all our websites so that clients can write new pages, add new sections to their website, add images and video without any need to come to us.

With a CMS, it only takes a minute to get your information live, and you can move on to more important things.

2. Your business has changed a lot since your website launched, so your site no longer reflects what you do

It’s been at least a year since your business started, and your business has changed direction. Would you know it from looking at your site?

By having a website with out of date services, your business looks out of date and you’re losing customers.

It doesn’t have to be a huge process — simply think about what information you should be offering on your site and talk to a designer about making those changes (unless you’ve got a good CMS in which case you can do it yourself).

3. Your website traffic keeps dropping off or most people leave your site without looking at more than 1 page

Traffic fleeing your site often happens because you have the wrong design. By design, I mean both your visual design and your “information design”, or what you say.

With your graphic design, your colour scheme, fonts, and layout might be letting you down. This happens a lot with DIY websites or sites built by one-person shops whose skill is in the coding, not design.

Look, no one can do everything, and web design is a skill like architecture or carpentry. Would you build your own house without hiring any other professionals?

If your site isn’t working, then it may be time to call in the professionals.

4. You don’t have or even know about website traffic reports

Do you check your reports to see how well your website is working and why?

I use Google Analytics, and I make sure all our clients know how to use this free, easy-to-use program to see where people are going on their site and where they’re leaving.

If you don’t know have reports like these, chances are your designer (or you) forgot some other important things that help your website thrive. It’s time to put those things right with the help of a good designer.

When you don’t need a redesign

Notice I didn’t list “When you haven’t changed your site’s design in X years” as a reason.

Changing your site just to “give it a fresh look” is never a good idea. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. You’ll just annoy your loyal visitors.

But if your website meets one or more of the criteria above, I hope you’ll get in touch with a designer whose work resonates with you.

Together, you’ll clear these hurdles to your success.

About Do Good Design

At Do Good, we create websites for small businesses who are passionate about what they do. We combine elegant design with punchy business tactics.

Find out the how we can build the perfect website for you.

Or get in touch to discuss your website project.