Why A Site Redesign Might Not Be A Good Idea

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

A friend of mine says he never redesigns an old website because he might lose his rankings. And he usually gets good rankings for his websites. Is that a good policy?

I think there is something to it, but even if your website has great rankings, it could have lousy sales. And what good is a website ranked at No. 1 that isn’t converting?

But before you do a complete redesign for any website – whether you are doing it to increase your rankings or increase your conversions – you should test your redesign on current customers and for traffic counts as well as conversions. A simple A/B test can do this for you in a while.

A site redesign can often lead to more conversions, more traffic, and more money, but I wouldn’t do it without testing the waters first. I’d rather have a site ranked lower and getting more sales than ranked higher and getting none. It could be that the traffic you are getting isn’t targeted traffic, or maybe you are targeting the wrong keywords. Wouldn’t you like to know?

So you tell me, should you redesign your website? Are you thinking about it?