How do I tell when I've outgrown my small business website?
As a small business owner, you need to focus on a thousand different things - accounts, sales, staff management, inventory, fulfillment, so on and so on. For most business owners, the honest truth is that their website is pretty far down the list in terms of day to day importance, but as a small business website plays such an important role in the overall marketing strategy, it's important to understand whether your website is actually fulfilling its requirements, or whether you've outgrown it and it's time to rebuild.
Most small business owners live in a perpetual state of thinking "I really should do something about the website..." however it's not always obvious what the turning point is between the website being old but functional, and when it's holding your business' growth back.
I find that the answer to this question is usually staring people right in the face, they just haven't connected the dots yet. Whenever I speak to a potential customer, and they tell me that their current website "can't be made to do (insert requirement here)", that right there is your light bulb moment. You've outgrown your website. As a business, you need to have a clear marketing strategy, and if your website is holding you back from achieving the goals of that strategy, then you don't need to adapt your strategy, you need a new website!
Just because your website is a few years old however, doesn't mean it's ready for the bin. Some agencies will try and convince you that you need to "refresh" the site every 18 months. The truth is, your website might not be a large traffic generator in your overall marketing strategy, and that's fine! Not every business needs to adopt the latest design trends the moment they're popular, and not every business needs to compete for online traffic. Your local pizza shop would be far better off spending their effort keeping the quality of their pizzas high, so their online reviews are great - if their website is little more than a phone number and a copy of the menu, that's probably enough!
I often say that Assembler is the sort of company you come and talk to for your SECOND website - your first website might just be something you knocked together in Wix, or it's a $500 special you found online. They did the job at the time, but as soon as you get to the stage where it's holding you back, you know it's time to find an agency you can work with to take that next step in growing your online presence.
Assembler is a web design agency based in Perth, Western Australia. This blog is intended to be an informal, behind the scenes look into the web design and development industry. If you like our content, please follow us on LinkedIn or Facebook!