when to redesign

[colonel5]

I'm currently at a crossroads with our company's website. We launched it a year ago and it worked great but our business has changed quite a bit since then. Our site consists of close to 100 pages with text, images, video, email forms, etc.

I'm at a point where either I redesign it now or I spend about half of the time it would take to redesign it and edit some of the main components of the site (navigation, headers, seo, etc) and then do a complete redesign next spring/summer. The overall goal of a redesign is to create better qualified sales leads for our account managers.

So my question is, when do you redesign? I usually prefer to work with a clean slate rather than a rather large mess.

[chalsema]

Seems like a personal preference type of thing. I'd say if it's getting redone anyways in several months, just go ahead and do it now... But that's just me.

[WannaBrie]

I'd have to go with Cassi on this one also, Colonel, If you gotta do in a couple months anyway, might as well bite the bullet and do a redesign now. Plus, like you said, start with a clean slate. That's how I like to do things too.

[Drazan]

depends on who's paying the bill. If you own your own company, or have no one else to say nay, then start from scratch - if you've the time to invest. else see if it's ok by the bosses to spend that much time on an internal project.

[colonel5]

yeah, not my company... i have a COO and CEO to get past if I want to start from scratch and they're a lot closer to letting me do it than I anticipated but I haven't sold them on it yet.

[Mynock]

Yesterday, any questions in this industry referring to timeframe are usually yesterday, as in "I needed it yesterday."

[CurtisS]

For business web sites make sure you are considering a redesign for the right reasons. Will a redesign make it easier for your customers to use? Will it change your customers view of the company (for the better)? Will return customers be confused when they visit the new site?
I know it is sometimes hard to resist the urge to consider a redesign simply for the sake of getting a new look.

[colonel5]

Good thoughts Curtis.

Yeah, when I launched our site a year ago it worked wonders for what and our customers needed it for but since our company has changed so much in our approach over the past year it's looking a like a redesign is inevitable.

[reuber1]

Yesterday, any questions in this industry referring to timeframe are usually yesterday, as in "I needed it yesterday."
That's some good wisdom. You sure you didn't steal that from MD?