Upgrading a website is more common in recent years due to the many advances in mobile technology. Older websites are not responsive and don’t display properly on mobile devices. However, before upgrading you need to ask yourself some questions and follow these steps.
Carry Out Extensive Research First
Unfortunately many business owners waste large sums of money upgrading their website when they don’t need to. You should ask certain questions before you decide to do an upgrade. These are some of them:
- Do I really need to change my website?
- How much will it cost?
- Will it be out of action? If so, for how long?
- Who will do the upgrade?
- What system will be used?
- Can I move the website to a reliable hosting service like bestwebhosting.co.uk for U.K. sites, MediaTemple or any others of your liking?
- What type of website do similar business have?
- Can I get recommendations and advice?
Once these questions are answered and you are satisfied that you need to revamp your website, you can move to the next stage of the process.
Decide Who Will Do the Project
If you intend to spend a large amount of money on a redesign it’s vital that you get it right. To ensure that things go smoothly during the design and implementation stage, you need to carefully consider who will be doing the work.
You may have your own staff members who have the technical skills to complete this type of work. However, most businesses don’t have this type of resource. Therefore, you have to hire a web design or website consultancy firm. If this is the case, you will need to research these types of companies too.
Look for recommendations from other website owners and research previously completed projects. Find out which website providers are professional, reliable and offer good value for money. Once you find a provider that ticks all the boxes, it’s time to plan your redesign.
Plan the Redesign
It’s important to know exactly what you want your new website to achieve and how you want it to appear. Planning the redesign alongside your web design expert will reduce confusion and help you draw up a much better roadmap for your new website. Your website designer may also give you valuable feedback and suggest certain features and changes. Once the plan is completed you should have a good estimate of what the project will cost, involve and how long it will take.
Make a Backup of Your Current Website
Before starting the project, you may have to take down the current website. This means you have to put in place a temporary solution. As well as this your current website probably contains important pages, posts, images, videos and databases. These may be needed later so you should ensure that the existing website is backed up before dismantling it.
Manage the Project
This type of work can take time and there may be distractions along the way. Stick closely to the plan you’ve drawn up. To effectively do this keep in constant contact with your designer. Look for updates and make sure they have everything they need to complete the work.
A website redesign can be stressful. It’s not something most people are used to doing regularly. However, you can prevent this stress by carrying out the proper research, hiring the right designer, planning, backing-up your existing website and managing the project correctly.
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