If you have received a quote from your web builder for rigorously updating your website, you as an entrepreneur want to know over how many years you can ‘spread out’ the costs because it is always quite a nice amount that you get for your choice. In addition, it is also an extra burden for a number of people within your company who are involved in the construction.
Aside from getting services like white label link building for SEO agencies, will getting a new website improve your website traffic and conversions?
Why sometimes a new site after 1 year?
Usually, a site lasts two or three years. Because in general, it only happens after that period that the visitors of your website see that a site does not have the appearance and functionality that they are used to from other websites. Then it is a missed opportunity to captivate and entice those visitors to contact your company or otherwise convert.
In the time that I build websites, since 2004, I see changes follow each other in rapid succession, in one year it is even a bit faster than in the other. For example, the website builder Gridbox (for Joomla) went through so many developments within the 1.5-year period that it more than caught up with other page builders, including those for WordPress. It also left the template frameworks, such as the Gantry framework I often use, behind, especially when it comes to building a static website. Contrary to what the term suggests, the content of a static website is also easy to adjust. Due to these rapid developments, new construction after 1-2 years is sometimes a more interesting option than waiting until the more usual lifespan of 2-3 years is over.
Reasons for having a new site developed
Below I will discuss which developments that can be, if there are no developments in between that you have to deal with yourself, there is no reason in my opinion to have a new site built. If you can’t judge your current website yourself, hope these may help.
Imperfections of the current website
Does solving imperfections in the current website, sometimes caused by updates of browsers (such as Chrome, Safari, etc), take a relatively long time? In a new website system, those compatibility problems are not present. Or they are easier to prevent.
Developments current website software
Are there enough developments in your current website builder? Check the so-called “changelog” of the website builder you are using. Will there be a monthly update? Are the added feature and bug fixes relevant to your website? In other words, if you wanted to, could you benefit monthly from updates that don’t actually cost you anything?
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Google’s requirements
Is the website in line with new requirements from Google? Search engines often adjust algorithms so that, for example, the speed of the site on a mobile screen has become an important factor in the ranking (July 2018).
Responsiveness
Does your current website builder offer possibilities to determine per screen (desktop, laptop, tablet landscape, tablet portrait, mobile landscape, mobile standing) how, but also any, content should be shown? This goes beyond the site adapting to the size of the visitor’s screen. With so-called “media queries” you can take responsive to a higher level. For example, on a small screen, you want to prevent the page title from taking up too much space and you do not find it necessary that a slider is visible; you’d rather have an image instead because it pops up faster.
Webmasters need too much time for adjustments
Does creating a new page take a lot of time? Because you have to reformat all the elements because you don’t have so-called ‘presets’. Or you want to give the page titles transparency and that can only be done by adjusting the title separately everywhere, a big job.
Lack of functionality
Want a blog? Often that function is not (complete enough) in an existing website and in, for example, Gridbox, so you do not have to have a plugin built into your current website.
Design trends
Are there certain design trends you don’t want to miss? As with other trends, it is almost impossible to think all designs about it you will have to make choices because your budget is probably not unlimited.
Conclusion
If you have often answered the above-mentioned questions with ‘no’, the more likely it is that you will decide not to have a new website built for the time being.
However, if you do see a reason to start an (early) replacement of your site, it is important to know what the benefits are but also whether there are parts of your site that the new system does not provide. So actually you should also ask your web builder if there are also things, specifically for your website, that are relatively difficult to realize in the new system. If you happen to find these points very important, it may be wise to wait a while.
Even if it is ‘politically’ difficult within your company to implement a major update after 1 year, it can of course be more convenient to wait a while. Because you often (sometimes strangely enough) don’t have to defend waiting like that.