Occasionally I’m asked to evaluate an organization’s website and help them determine whether a redesign will help them accomplish their latest goals, or if they actually need to start from scratch to get what they want. This is never an easy question to answer, and there are various ways to determine what is the best plan for each website.
First, what is the difference between redesigning and rebuilding a website? To me, a redesign is more likely to address the look and feel of a website, leaving the basic functions unchanged. A rebuild gets to the heart of the website and addresses its strategy, the technology used and the CMS (content management system), in addition to the look and feel of the site.
A redesign most likely only involves applying a new look to a website that is already meeting all of the functional goals of an organization. It’s more cost-effective than a full rebuild, but it may not give you the added functions that you are looking to gain in the process. A good comparison is doing body work or repainting your car–it looks new and fresh, but it essentially operates the same way it did before the repairs.
Rebuilding goes much deeper by addressing the underlying technology and functionality, such as the content management systems, servers, code and databases being used. Everything is examined more closely, and more questions regarding the desired functions of the website are asked. How can the site be more usable for the target audience? Is the CMS effective for the goals of the site? Is the webpage loading quickly enough for visitors? These and many other questions will help determine the look and functions of the rebuilt site.
When you are thinking about updating your website these are essentially the two approaches, although ultimately most sites that get redone are a combination of the two. Here are a few things to look at when looking at whether your current website is in need of a refresh to better meet your goals:
Look and Feel
If you are unhappy with your website’s look but everything else meets your goals, a redesign is the best option. There is usually no reason to consider changing your CMS if the site is functioning in an effective and efficient manner.
One caveat, mobile compatibility should also be considered. If you have an older design that doesn’t function well on mobile devices, you might want to have new layouts created that adapt better to the increased number of people calling up your site on their phone. Most likely you won’t need to change all the underlying technology in that case, but it is a possibility.
Usability
A situation involving bad usability could lend itself to either a redesign or a full rebuild, depending on the scenario.
Let’s say that the website is hard for people to use because the CMS is limiting your staff’s ability to easily implement contact forms on new pages. Other situations could be that adding new articles to the blog is cumbersome, or adding time-sensitive announcements to the home page is causing your staff to despise managing the website. All of these issues might call for rebuilding the entire system your website is running on to make the usability easier for your team.
Maybe the website is hard to navigate because of an ineffective design. Things such as bad calls-to-action, mobile incompatibility, inappropriate design direction or disorganized information are all characteristics of a bad design. A redesign of the visual elements could address these issues without having to change the underlying technology of the website.
Content Management and User Input
Website management, essentially the management of content and user input, is the issue that usually calls for a rebuild of an organization’s website. Switching to a different CMS, or adding a CMS to a website that doesn’t have one, can be a difference-maker for a website. It changes how the website is managed and affects the workflow of your content publishing and page management–helping your organization better and more efficiently meet its goals.
Two other side effects of changing your CMS–it could change the options you have for your page layouts and cause you to improve the server on which your website runs. Changing (or adding) your CMS could have ripple effects that mandate a redesign, but should ultimately improve the overall performance of your website.
Technology
When considering a change to your website, you will also need to take into consideration the technology that your website uses to run. Is your server platform modern and secure? Is your website using scripting languages that are modern and still supported and used by many developers? Is your HTML up-to-date and compliant with modern browsers? Is your CMS still supported by its developer? If you answered “no” to any of those questions, it would be prudent to consider rebuilding your website on technology that is modern, widely supported and will continue to be supported or enhanced moving into the future.
Budget
Last, but definitely not least, your budget will affect how deep you can go when redesigning your website. Our initial recommendation is always to analyze your entire web strategy and determine what you need to do to tailor the best possible website for both your internal team and users to the site. If it’s affordable, it is always best to do everything at one time rather than trying to rebuild a site piece-by-piece. As technology constantly improves, things you might want to do now but hold off on can be more expensive, or possibly not available, when you get to the point you can move on to the next step.
If you have limited budget available but need to get your new brand applied to your website, at minimum, redesigning your look can go far to improve the visual impact of your site and give your website a quick kick in the pants without overhauling everything.
These are a few things to consider when you think about what to do with your website moving forward. It’s a great opportunity for your business to do more than just repair a fender–it’s the opportunity for you to get a whole new engine for the car you are currently driving!
If you would like to get some assistance with determining whether your website is meeting all of your goals, we’re here to help. Give us a call at (701) 478-1111 or email info@absolutemg.com.