10th September 2013
How often do you redesign your website? Do you adopt a long-term view with your design agency to revisit, review and redesign your site in incremental steps on a regular basis? Or do you tolerate the imperfections on your website until they accumulate to a critical point and you commission a total overhaul?
There are pros and cons to each approach but in our experience, most people tend to adopt a mentality of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ which gradually lapses into ‘okay, so it’s breaking but it’ll do for a bit longer’ and then ‘Hmm...it’s definitely broken so let’s fix it - when we have the time and budget’.
A stitch in time
Keeping close to your design agency can be really valuable and saves you from allowing brand-tarnishing flaws to live on your site before throwing out your old website and startling your customers with a completely new site.
A long term partnership gives your agency a chance to familiarise themselves deeply with your business and its strategic aims; influence your website strategy; and refine your site so that it evolves smoothly in pace with best practice, both technically and aesthetically.
Boom and bust
Your website is a major part of your brand, your marketing, your audience communications and possibly your commerce, right? A well executed website strategy would avoid the ‘decay and rebirth’ cycle and favour an ongoing refinement to ensure your customers always see your site (brand, marketing, communications, commerce etc.) at its best.
Regular maintenance doesn’t mean overworking your site or indulging in needless frills. You can discuss with your agency what sort of frequency would fit your website strategy (what do you mean, you ‘don’t have a website strategy as such’? We need to talk). It might mean meeting with your agency twice a month or twice a year or just every Christmas - simply to touch base and check that your website is still looking sharp and working hard for you. Viva la evolution!