CMA Webs - Avoiding Redesign Pitfalls

To Keep Your Website Fresh, Update Your Design, Not Your Structure...

Avoiding Redesign Pitfalls

The best Websites are packed with interesting information, so easy to use even a computer novice can fly through the pages, and always dynamic, fresh, and up to date. Easy, right? Well, even companies paying top dollar to a team of Web developers don't always manage to hit that target. The good news is that your Website is probably much smaller, simpler in design, and easier to update than those big monstrous Sites. That means you can do a much better job of keeping your Site up to date and fresh.

Keeping content current is an absolute must and the most important way you can keep your Website relevant and interesting to visitors. Failing to update content hurts your Site. Keeping it updated allows your Site to maintain its value. So, what do you do if you want to give your Site an extra boost, kick it up a notch?

It is tempting to go for a complete redesign, but that can be costly, time consuming, and isn't always welcomed by your regular visitors. If the redesign includes changes to the navigation elements of your Site it forces them to relearn how to get around. If the redesign includes structural changes like renaming files or changing the folder structure, it can also break their bookmarks, favorites, and shortcuts. It can also break links to your Site found on other Websites. If you're lucky, people who create links to your Site will link to your domain's default page, for example: www.yourdomain.com. This type of link will always find your Site. Sometimes, however, people will create links that are specific to a particular page in your site, for example: www.yourdomain.com/coolbooks.com. If you change the name of that page or move it to a new folder that link will be broken and, because it is on someone else's Website, you won't be able to do much about it. You might not even know the link is there.

It can be much more effective to update your design without updating the navigation or structure of the Site. Changing simple design elements can have a huge impact for your visitors. Consider the impact of changing all the images on your Site from full color to black and white. Wow! What an impact that would make. What about changing one color in the design, say from green to blue? That could create a fresh feel with a more subtle impact. If your Site uses CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) you can make many small style changes very quickly. Do you have a banner that appears on every page of your Website? You can make a big change by changing just that one image file. As you make changes, always remember to keep the look of your Site consistent from page to page.

Sometimes there are legitimate reasons to go for a major redesign, if your Website isn't doing its job, for example. If you find you must redesign your Site, remember the pitfalls of changing your Website's structure and do what you can to minimize problems. Keep as many folder and file names intact as possible. Consider using redirect links or scripts on old pages to automatically send people to the new pages. Let regular visitors to your Site know in advance that the change is coming or, if you have one, use an e-mail distribution list to let them know. You can also find out about some of the external links people use to get to your site by looking at your Website's statistics or log files. These are often available through your Web Hosting account. Contact webmasters for Sites that link to yours and let them know about your changes and be sure to thank them for linking to your Site. They'll be happy to hear from you—no one likes broken links on their Site.

Keeping your Site up to date and fresh will keep your visitors coming back as long as you remember to make changes to content and design while minimizing changes to the navigation and structure of your Website.