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5 reasons you should refresh or rebuild your old site

Has it been more than four years since you launched your website? Is it time for a refresh or even a rebuild? The answer is a definite yes.

A lot of business owners see building a website as a "once off" investment (the site is built, and it will continue into eternity servicing my business and my customers). Unfortunately this is not the case.

Why do I need to refresh or even rebuild my site?

  1. Security: as your site becomes older it can be more vulnerable to security issues. Updates are critical to keep your site secure.
  2. Search engines regularly change their algorithms and the way they catalogue sites. Specifically these search engines want to provide users with the best possible user experience (so they are always updating their algorithms).   If your site isn't super mobile friendly, doesn't have an SSL certificate or is slow to load - this will annoy customers as well as have an impact on your position within Google natural search.
  3. Customer’s preferences change. Example:  years ago as web developers we tried to minimise "vertical scroll", however these days users are happy (and expect) to be able to scroll through content on one page (no more "next page" options!).
  4. Opportunities:
    1. Users are demanding that sites are mobile friendly sites (even if they just want to look up your phone number). If your site looks "tiny" on a mobile device (or is cumbersome to use on a mobile device), your user is highly likely to become frustrated and maybe go somewhere else.
    2. Users want to interact with your company 24 / 7, so it’s critical you put information and processes (such as account logins / ecommerce) in place to allow customers to "self-serve".
  5. Platform Dependency: If your site is "super" old (e.g. 6 years +) the platform / server your site is running will need to be updated sometime in the future. You may find your old site no longer works on newer platforms.

So what’s the difference between a "refresh" and a "rebuild"?

A refresh usually refers to changing the "visuals" of the site (e.g. the design will change, but the backend functions will stay the same). A re-build really is a "start from scratch".