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There comes a time in every site's life for an update to the site - a makeover if you will. A time to give it a new "look and feel." A time to fix all those things that just don't work well in the current site design. A time to throw out the "blink" tags that make your text flash and look like the Las Vegas strip and replace it with something more professional.
The question is always "when?" WHEN does it make sense to give the site a facelift? Site upgrades are not free (whether that cost is in time and/or money), so deciding WHEN is a good time to update is always a challenge.
To Update or Not Update, That is the Question
Well, we've been struggling with that at AdMinder for some time now. But I believe that this question should best be answered like just about any other decision you have to make about your business. For example, if you run an advertising campaign with company x for $x and you know ahead of time you'll make $x plus some more, it makes good business sense to run the ad. Why? Because you're losing out on lost profits if you don't.
The same holds true when debating whether or not to update a site. Are you losing customers because of the way the site looks? Are you losing customers because they cannot easily navigate your site, get frustrated and leave? Or perhaps, you're running on a particular server or server platform that doesn't (or won't) support what you want to do to generate more revenue and/or reduce costs? To "update or not update" should primarily come down to a financial decision.
Now, notice I said "primarily comes down to a financial decision." If your site is perfect the way it is in terms of navigation, layout, ad copy, etc., but your visitors are getting into a routine when they visit your site, they may be missing out on other information, services or offers you might have.
For example, there's one particular site I have logged into everyday for the past couple of years. At one time, I needed to update something in my account -- something I had never done before. But, since I had been doing the same thing every time I log in, I never saw the "My Account" link on one of the pages. I just blew right by it because I always went to the same place every day. And the page I always went to didn't have the "My Account" info link on it. So, I was quite embarrassed when I called customer service and asked how I update my account. I wasted their time and mine (not to mention hurting my ego, self-confidence, etc.).
Now, if the site had been changed, it would have forced me to look at the new site, figure out where everything is and find out what's new (or see what's always been there that I never saw before).
Cleanup Your Own Backyard
As I said earlier, we've been struggling with this update decision for some time. Let me share our reasons why we have chosen to update the AdMinder.com site.
- Cross-Promotion of Services - The AdMinder site was originally designed to offer a single service - ad tracking. But then, we started getting requests for advertising services, so the Guaranteed Visitors (GV) advertising program was added. Now, we've got two services, but the site was still designed for one - the ad tracking service. So, we started to advertise the GV program using other methods, like exit-windows, email messages and through affiliates who were able to send their visitors directly to the GV page. So, that kind of worked for some time, but as we added more services, like the new Drop In Ad service, it became increasingly difficult to now promote all the services. For example, what if the first page you visited when you came to our site was our home page? How would you know about our other services? So, one of our goals with the new site is to more easily communicate the fact that AdMinder offers several services -- not just ad tracking.
The cost of not updating the site: Lost revenue due to lack of cross-product promotion.
- Easy Navigation - In a similar vein to goal number 1, we want people to easily find what they are looking for. For example, if a customer orders a Guaranteed Visitors package, we send them an email with the URL of where they can log into their account. But what happens if they lose that email? Many times, the customer will contact our support team for assistance (which is totally reasonable). However, from our point of view, we are now spending more time (and money) on issues that could be eliminated with better site navigation (not to mention eliminating customer inconvenience, confusion and frustration).
The cost of not updating the site: Unnecessary time (and money) spent on issues that shouldn't be an issue in the first place.
- The Freshness Factor - Remember the old commercial slogan "same place, same thing?" Well, that's how I'd describe the look and feel of the AdMinder site. It's been like this for quite a while now (2 1/2 years or so). And it's important to make sure that your customers know that your site is current and that it's not some site you built five years and haven't done anything with since. For example, if I visited a site that said something like "last updated, February 2, 1999" (and I'm sure you've visited some, too), you can guess I'd be moving on pretty quickly. Wouldn't you? Although a site may not have a "freshness date," a "same place, same thing" look and feel might convey that same undesirable message. That's how I feel about AdMinder -- "same place, same thing," even though we have been adding new services and features.
The cost of not updating the site: Lost revenue due to repeat visitors and customers not seeing new services and offers.
DRUM ROLL PLEASE...
So, now you're probably wondering what the new site looks like and whether we've accomplished our goals or not, aren't you? Well, you're gonna have to wait as we're still in the early stages of redesign. However, by going through the above thought process and mapping out our goals, it made the decision of whether or not to upgrade much easier, not to mention the goals the new site should achieve. Ultimately, you'll be the judge of how well we met our objectives.
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