I once heard a rule of thumb was once every 2 years.  I am less likely to look at the passage of time and more at whether your website is effective or not.

The first question you should ask yourself is, are you getting the results you are expecting from your website?  If the answer is yes, then you might look at some ways to incrementally improve your website by changing content that is outdated or adding information about some new promotions, products or services you have added.  If search engine optimization is your main concern, then maybe a change in technology behind the scenes is the key to a successful redesign.

If you aren’t getting good results from your current site, it may be time to do an analysis (you can do a mini-free-analysis here) and see if maybe you just need to improve the content you are already providing, or scrap the whole website and go for a complete overhaul.  Reviewing the quality of your site every year should be a target goal…redesigning should be determined from that review.

The second question you should ask yourself is, how busy is my site?  If you have a lot of repeat customers and they engage with your site 3 times a week or more, they may be getting bored with the look of your site, but remember, people also don’t like change.  Be very careful about how you change your website during a redesign.  If you have an established navigation that is well thought out, this is not something to tinker with.  Radically moving items or doing a complete overhaul on a popular site is not an activity to be taken lightly.  Talking with your web designer about what elements are popular on your website and which ones are not will help you make a good decision on how to refresh your site without a lot of damage to your client base.

Another item to consider is how your site is fitting with your brand and your sales strategy.  If your site is giving the wrong impression about who you are as a company, this is a prime reason to talk redesign.  Again, this decision is not based on time a timeline, when your business is being judged by your website, any negative impressions it is delivering should be taken care of with the greatest of speed.

Good communication with your web designer, a review of your site stats, and an eye on what your goals are for the site will be the best gauge for when you should pull the trigger on a website redesign.

Sadly, there are a lot of good coders and programmers out there that get into business, but don’t have any business sense.  They come up with some buzz words, read a ton of articles, but they miss the larger point…satisfying the customer.

With the web design industry one of the most accessible to anyone with a computer, an HTML or PHP book, and a website, its no wonder these horror stories occur.

But there is a way for the average web services client to fight back.  And it is a very easy and time tested one…but one that amazingly not a lot of people try.

Ask for references.

That’s right, just like a job interview, your potential web developers should provide a list of a few websites they have delivered. In addition, you should call these previous customers and ask them the following:

• how they were treated
• were deadlines made and adequately met
• did the developer communicate during all phases of the project – especially when delays might have occur
• did they provide a contract
• were their payment terms agreeable
• did they answer all of your questions and were they clear or did they use a lot of jargon and talk over your head?

Its amazing how many people are glad to provide these comments.  And if they aren’t happy, then you will get your answer quite clearly.

Then before hiring your programmer, make sure you are comfortable talking with them.  You are going to spend the next month or more…and then into the future with maintenance, talking with this person.  You need to feel at ease and you need to feel they are answering your questions and focusing on your business more than their skills.

A website can range from $1000 to $100,000 investment.  The web developer is going to be a leader in getting your business marketing online.  Would you trust this to just anyone?

Then think of them as if they were going to be working for you side by side.  Would they be a good fit for your team?

With a little bit of due diligence, you can avoid the painful heartache that is attributed to many who have enlisted the help of the wet behind the ears web programmer/business person.