The importance of analyzing an existing website prior to a revamp.

Before embarking on any revamp of your website it is important to spend some time analyzing your existing website and looking in detail at how it is presently working for your business and where any improvements can be made.

Really this type of analysis should be completed every few months to ensure optimum website performance. Remember there is no point spending a lot of money on a website design and build and then just leaving it there unchanged for years. A website will date just as quickly as any other part of your marketing strategy and should reflect your company in the present and not how it operated 3 to 4 years ago. You wouldn’t send out marketing and company information to new clients that was 4 years old so your website should be treated in exactly the same way.
Another factor to be considered with websites is how fast the technology changes, many websites which were built more than 2 years ago are not suitable for viewing on mobile devices so it is important to keep pace with how your customers are interacting with the website.

You will need to ask yourself some of the following questions:

• Is anyone visiting your website?
• Is the website generating any leads?
• Is anyone using the contact forms?
• How many people visit my site every day?
• How long do they spend on my website?
• How many pages are visited by clients when they do arrive on the website?
• What devices are potential clients using to view your website?
• Where are my clients from?

As a business owner you should have a good feel for how your website is performing, the main indication of success being the leads that are generated. Remember that it is your clients that use your website and not you so it is important to analyze your current website form a different point of view from your own. Sometimes it can be difficult to objectively appraise your own website so getting some external advice or using a service provided by Google called Google Analytics can help with the process. This will allow you to look in great detail at how your website is performing and will provide valuable insights into the changes which may be required.