People often ask me if they should redesign their site. Nine times out of ten the answer is "yes". Internet years are like dog years and what looked great 5 years ago will compare badly to your competition now. We all spend a lot of time "researching" on the web. We find a couple of sites and instantly short-list them. It's at that point that your site design can really let you down.

It gets even worse if you are spending a lot of time and money trying to get people to your site. I see many businesses that are running Google or Yellow Pages advertising that costs hundreds (sometimes thousands!) of dollars per month but their site is horrible. A lot of that money is wasted. Any business coach will tell you that it is cheaper to increase your conversion rate than get new leads. The internet is no different.

Here are three before and after examples...
 

Creditline Australia before and after - http://www.creditline.com.au

 

Hallam Hobbies before and after - http://www.hallamhobbies.com.au

 

Endeavour Locksmiths before and after - http://www.securitysolutions.com.au

 

Does it work?

It's the obvious question: "did the site get more hits?". Yes, but that is only part of the story. I also look at the amount of time spent on the site and the number of pages viewed by each visitor. These are incredibly important because they indicate whether or not your site has got people's attention.

Let's have a look at the GMAC Internet Solutions website before and after we redesigned it a few months ago...

Number of visitors

The amount of time spent on site per visit Before update: 1 minute 54 seconds After update: 9 minutes 32 seconds   The total number of pages viewed per visit Before update: 2.73 pages After update: 6.50 pages

Was I happy? Yes, I was! Those numbers meant that my site was spending more time with everybody who visited it. My website now has more opportunity to do its job.

 

If you are wondering if you should get your site updated then there are two simple tests:

1. Are you confident and proud to tell people to visit your website to find out more about you?
   or
   
2. Set your starting page on your web browser to be your company website. Then look at it every time you go onto the internet for the next week. Do you like what you see?
   

If the answer to either of those is "no" then you need to get your website updated NOW. Because if you don't like it then why would anybody else?