Maybe You Don't Need a New Website
I recently told two potential clients that I didn't think they needed a new website. Sounds like I am not a very good businessman.
But they didn't need a new site. Their existing site worked for them, even though it was a few years old. They had been adding updates but nothing else changes. Both sites were built using a WYSIWYG site designs (Squarespace and GoDaddy) which make it pretty easy to update. But neither owner was comfortable in doing anything more involved with the sites other than minor updates without help. One had forgotten how to access the editing tools.
Web designers and website owners learn pretty quickly that site maintenance ultimately will involve more time and work (and cost) than site creation.
What I ended up doing for them consisted of some smaller but important updates and maintenance. Here are 6 possibilities for you to consider:
- Make content changes. People don't return to your site if it never changes. That's what makes blogs or news updates on a site bring people back.
- A site audit of security, performance and usability can reveal some changes to be made.
- How does your site work on phones and tablets?
- Does the site have the latest versions of the software, such as plugins? There may be new themes that can give your site a fresh and significantly different look for little time or cost.
- Is it worth moving the site to a new hosting account that offers better pricing or more flexibility? can that be done with minimal work by me?
- Search engine optimization (SEO) is important but an area that has a lot of scam offers to get your site "to the top of search results." Simple use of keywords and other page code can help, along with some advice about how to move up the results.
- Related to SEO is getting the word out via newsletters, mailing lists and social media. Are you using those things?
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