Many businesses face the challenge of knowing when they need to invest time and money in a redesign of their web site. Accessing the current state of your site in a number of areas can help determine if a redesign is necessary.

DOWCO Marine
One client that approached Starkmedia feeling it was time for an overhaul was DOWCO Inc. An industry leader in the manufacture of quality covers for boats, motorcycles, atvs, snowmobiles, and personal watercraft, DOWCO's Marine and Power Sports divisions had expanded and warranted new consideration of their web presence.

After reviewing the current site structure, Starkmedia proposed a design that could serve as both the consumer and dealer location for the Marine division. It was important for DOWCO to design a site that appealed to consumers visually and highlighted supporting educational content, while maintaining the e-commerce and account management needs of authorized dealers.

Starkmedia is also currently developing DOWCO's Corporate, Power Sports division, and Bead Bags division sites. In separating these divisions both visually and physically, the specific aesthetic and structural needs of these unique target markets can be met effectively.

If you're unsure whether a new site design is right for your business, here are some important questions to determine when it's time to redesign:

1. How well does the existing site convert?
   Are visitors coming to your site only to immediately leave? Identify important metrics that give feedback on your site's performance and then let real numbers determine your site's effectiveness.
2. What specific elements of your site are good (and bad)?
   Arbitrarily changing your site just for the sake of change is wasteful. Without direction, you may inadvertently remove some of the most important elements that users find helpful.
3. Does your design comply with Internet standards and practices?
   Through simple repetition throughout cyberspace, identifiable locations are the places users look for certain elements. If the element is located in the tried and true location, users find the site easier to use. In addition, their overall impressions of the sites are more favorable. Familiarity is key.
4. Have company changes dictated a new design?
   If your company has been acquired or gone through major internal restructuring, the need for a new web design to reflect the change is obvious. The same applies if your company is altering its brand or direction. Your web site needs to reflect the goals of your business.
5. Is the current design hurting your company in the search engines?
   Does your existing site use architecture or technology that is search engine hostile? A tried and true method of improving a site's search engine compatibility is improving its crawlabilty. If your current design is limiting what spiders can index, take heart: You may only be one redesign away from new traffic.
6. Does your existing site show its age?
   Someone with even a little industry knowledge can approximate the date of your site based on its characteristics. If your company is trying to project a modern, sleek image spinning globes and blinking text is certainly not the way.
7. Does the old design not support all the growth areas?
   We've all seen sites that give the impression new items have been tacked on to an existing design. If your original design no longer supports new content and site organization is beginning to fall apart, it may be time to develop a new, more cohesive design.
8. Was the original web site created to be "pretty" rather than functional?
   This is where you see that a great deal of money has been spent to create flash graphics, splash pages, etc. Little money may have been invested in developing valuable text content or considering how the site will actually be used.

Redesign...No Casual Decision
Do your research. Take the time to conduct usability studies, perform surveys of your visitors pertaining to your site functionality and pour over your analytics to see what your site's strengths and weaknesses are. Once you've compared positive to negative and pro to con, combine the information with your answers to the nine questions above and the decision about redesigning should become crystal clear. Contact Starkmedia to get started.