| Is your website looking a little stale and not | | | | - slow server: not enough space or bandwidth or too |
| performing well for you Do you want it to look more | | | | many sites on one server |
| professional? If so, its time to redesign your website | | | | - multi media: video and audio consume lots of server |
| so it will clearly reflect your business image, attract | | | | resources |
| more visitors and generate more sales. | | | | 5. Not optimized for the search engines |
| Let's look at the top 7 reasons to redesign your | | | | Your web designer may not have designed your web |
| website: | | | | pages to be search engine friendly so they won't |
| 1. Out of date design | | | | attract much traffic. Many web designers know how |
| If your website was designed several years ago it | | | | to design but are not familiar with marketing. When |
| probably has an old design that no longer appeals to | | | | redesigning your website be sure to select a web |
| your visitors (or yourself). Even if you get lots of | | | | designer that knows about search engine marketing. |
| visitors they are not purchasing your products or | | | | 6. Converting static website to content management |
| services. Your website should provide the best | | | | system (CMS) |
| experience for first time visitors so they'll want to do | | | | If your static HTML website contains hundreds of |
| business with you. | | | | pages that need updating you'll have to edit them |
| 2. Out of date content | | | | one at a time unless you use server side includes |
| If the content no longer grabs your visitor's attention | | | | files. Many site owners are now using CMS because |
| you need to rewrite it. Why not redesign your | | | | of these features: |
| website while you rewrite the content so your design | | | | - separate content creation from design |
| will harmonize or enhance it. | | | | - easy to update/add/edit/delete pages from |
| 3. Ineffective navigation | | | | backend administration panel |
| If your visitors can't quickly and easily access the | | | | - create unlimited pages |
| information they'll go to your competitor's site. Your | | | | - no HTML knowledge needed |
| information should be within 3 clicks from the home | | | | Two popular CMS editors are WordPress and Joomla. |
| page. Old navigation menus use images which the | | | | Both are open source and freely available |
| search engines find difficult to index. Convert your | | | | 7. Creating interactive website |
| pages over to a CSS (cascading style sheets) | | | | Most static HTML websites are not built for |
| navigation system. It loads fast and is search engine | | | | interaction with your visitors. For example with a CMS |
| friendly. | | | | such as a blog visitors can leave comments, subscribe |
| 4. Slow loading web pages | | | | to RSS feeds, create multiple editors to add content, |
| Google has added loading speed as a ranking factor | | | | plus a blog automatically alerts the search engines of |
| for the search engines. If your website doesn't load | | | | new content. |
| fast you may not only lose rankings but lose visitors | | | | If your current website fits any these 7 criteria |
| who have become impatient. Some factors that | | | | consider a redesign. You'll have the opportunity to |
| affect load times include: | | | | create an up to date professional design that is |
| - flash objects: flash introductions or flash images | | | | search engine friendly, fast loading and attracts more |
| - large images or too many of them on the page | | | | visitors and sales. |
| - code errors: javascript or HTML errors | | | | |