EBizInsider

I write this piece, or something like it, every year at about this time. This is the pre-holiday rush for e-commerce operators. This is when they have to decide what, if anything, they should do with their websites to be ready for the holiday season. This is when I remind people to take a look around their site as they might if it were a brick-and-mortar store. Then ask, is it fresh? Is it current? Does it answer the questions customers will ask? Will it sell what I offer?

Change is Key
It is important to redesign your website every 2 years at the most. I promise this is not my mantra. I admit it is self-serving for my business, but it is still true. It is critical to demonstrate to your customers that your site is state of the art. It’s what they expect. Don’t be fooled by the fiction that cyberspace is huge with a shopping pool to match. The fact is, your business will rise or fall on your regular customers. If your site is stale, the regulars will notice. And while they may be familiar and they may be regular, they may also assume because the site is the same that your products haven’t changed either.

“Greekgear.com needed a redesign for a simple reason. Websites need to look fresh and hip for their customers. Make no mistake, our business is doing great. But my wife’s family has a brick-and-mortar store, and they update every two or three years. The fact is the Internet is changing. More people are shopping online, and they expect us to change, just like conventional stores.”
— Joe Tantillo, Greekgear.com

The Sooner the Better
Only you will decide if it’s time to redesign, but here’s a hint. Ask your friends, confidants and others whom you trust to visit your site. Ask them for their impressions. If they are regular surfers and they aren’t impressed, that’s a sign. If you have an area for customer feedback and comment, monitor it. What are your people saying about you? Another hint is the mirror test. Ask yourself, “is my site still hot compared to the others in my industry?” If the answer is anything short of a resounding—YES!—you have your answer, don’t you?

There are two other, more practical reasons to strike sooner than later. First, you want your shoppers to be used to your new site. So it’s best to be up BEFORE they start buying for the holidays. Second, and perhaps equally important, if you have made improvements in your site content with respect to the search engines, you’ll want to give the site time to move higher in the search rankings

Improve the Process
Redesigns help improve conversions in several ways. First, any redesign should make your site work better. Search engine algorithms are constantly changing, so it’s a good idea to update your site with a cleaner code that will help optimize your site for good rankings.

You should also take advantage of newer features that might not have been available in the past. Remember, it was only a few years ago that we didn’t have airbags in cars. Now they’re standard equipment, As Products Reviews are now an integral part of the online shopping experience. If you don’t have the feature you should definitely add it. Checkout design has improved dramatically as well in the last couple of years. These improvements make it better for your shoppers. You can’t afford not to investigate them.

Over the years, you probably have added a lot of piece-mail items to your site. They may not all be tied together as tightly as they should, so a redesign will help make them look like they belong together. Of course any redesign should also make your site and products more attractive.

Watch Your Back!
Big brand sites have evolved. It is more important than ever to pay attention to what the 800 pound gorillas are doing in your industry. You should benefit from their millions of dollars in market research. But as those sites evolve, yours should too. Please don’t take this “monitoring” as encouragement to rip the competition off – it’s important to be original and unique. Still, there is a lot to be learned from the major retailers. The fact is, large or small your competition has gotten better over the years and a redesign will once again set you apart.

Watch Your Bottom Line
Redesigns can also help with cross selling and increasing the average dollar value of each order. A well-designed site is intriguing as well. It will interest shoppers and help convince them to dig more deeply into your store. When they do they may discover other products of interest.

I hate when I say this because it is so self-serving, but I don’t care. It’s true. Do NOT be fooled by today’s success. No matter what industry you’re in, the brick-and-mortar big boys are waking up. They didn’t succeed in old retail by accident and they’ll expect to succeed in cyberspace. Your advantage is that you were out here first. Make sure you keep that advantage. Redesign to stay fresh, to stay nimble and to stay successful. And most of all, believe that old sports adage: “If you’re not getting better, you’re getting worse.”

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