In this article, we discuss whether a business needs to overhaul their website with a complete redesign, or if taking an iterative approach is the better option.

There are countless articles that outline all the reasons why you should redesign your website. But what if we told you that you don’t have to go through the arduous redesign process to get the desired results? Rather, you may just need to optimize instead of overhaul.

Why Do Companies Redesign Their Websites?

Let’s take a step back for a moment and look at why website redesigns happen in the first place On average, a company redesigns its website every 3 to 5 years, and each time, it’s for a different reason.

Companies may want to redesign their website because:

• It doesn’t reflect their vision and values
• The site doesn’t effectively communicate what they do
• It’s not aesthetically pleasing
• The site is confusing and poorly organized
• The platform is cumbersome, difficult to use, or no longer supported

Do You Really Need a Website Redesign?

Your website is more than just an informational billboard on the Internet—it is a marketing and sales tool. It’s no longer acceptable to let your website gather dust. It’s there to help your business grow. You have to update content regularly to keep visitors (and search engines) engaged.

If your website isn’t helping your business by generating leads or engaging site visitors, you may need a complete redesign.

Or maybe not.

The Problem with the Traditional Approach to Website Redesign

The traditional web design model requires a huge time investment with large up-front costs. Often, you end up with a redesigned site that’s built on opinions and gut feelings, rather than data.

Now, there is a lot more to consider when you redesign your site, especially the negative impact it could have on your online presence.

Blindly redesigning your website with little consideration for long- and short-term goals will inevitably lead to unpredictable results. The set-it-and-forget-it approach doesn’t grow with your business or change with the times, but luckily you have options.

What is Growth-Driven Design?

We’re not saying a complete website redesign isn’t an option. It just might not be the best option. There is a new kid on the block—growth-driven design.

The growth-driven design model sees your website as a living, breathing part of your business. It’s an adaptive approach to web development that evolves over time based on business needs. Growth-driven design relies on data instead of personal preferences and hunches.

Some of the benefits of growth-driven design:

• Your investment is spread out over time, versus being spent upfront
• You can launch your website sooner and improve it as you continue to measure, identify, iterate and optimize
• Improvements to optimize results are continuous. They are not a set-it-and-forget-it approach
• As your business grows, data-driven optimizations can be made, so your website becomes stronger as improvements are made.
• Your website becomes stronger

Instead of scrapping your current site, you could pinpoint what isn’t working, fix it, and continue to make improvements to the website over time.

How Should You Move Forward?

Before deciding whether a web redesign or an iterative approach is right for you, ask yourself the following questions.

What Does Your Website’s Analytics Tell You?

Pull your site analytics to determine how it’s performing. Dig into what pages people are visiting, what pages they aren’t visiting, where they are coming from, whether there are certain times of year traffic is higher, etc.

You would be surprised what you can uncover by really digging into your analytics and understanding what people are doing when they visit your site.

Sometimes, simple tweaks can make a big difference:

• Reorganize your pages to make the site easier to navigate.
• Simplify your calls to action to focus on the primary action you want visitors to take.
• Reorganize page content to make it more “skimmable” and easier for visitors to get to what they need.

How Does Your Site Hold Up Against Your Competitors’ Websites?

Research your competitors’ websites to see what they are doing with their sites. Are they outdated? Then you have an opportunity to get ahead of the curve.

Is your site falling behind? Then you need to consider what steps you should take immediately to at least catch-up. And then make a plan to get ahead. Sometimes, a simple update of your calls to action, usability, and site design is all you need. 

Is Your Site Helping You Achieve Your Business Goals?

Your site needs to convert visitors into clientele. If nobody is hitting the contact page, or reaching out to your company, you may need to rethink your content.

Make sure your website resonates with your audience, educates, and provides value. If your website copy isn’t clear, or the calls to action aren’t prominent, some reorganization and rewrites might be in order.

Based on the answers to these questions, do you think you can get your website where you want it to be without a complete redesign?

A New Approach to Web Redesign

Your website is the online heart of your business, so it’s important to keep it updated with fresh content and to use all tools at your disposal to drive traffic to it.

Just keep in mind that there are ways to keep it fresh that can help you avoid the lengthy, costly commitment of a traditional website redesign, and the Growth-Driven Design approach may be just what you need.