The Dilemma: Fix the Old Website or Get a Brand New One

Any business savvy person knows that if you want your business to succeed, you need to have a website. But just as with everything else, eventually your website will be considered outdated, and at some point, it won’t even function as well as it should. But here's the question – do you revamp your old website and fix it, or do you get a new website?

To make this simple, let's look at a website like it is a car. When you go to the dealership and purchase a newer car you know you're going to be getting something that should work perfectly for fairly good amount of time. Purchase an older vehicle, especially one that's over 10 years old, and just about anything can happen. You may need to replace the alternator, a gasket, you might have to put a new starter in; the list goes on and on. While it may seem that you're just doing cheap little fixes here and there, all of those cheap little fixes add up over time and before you know it, you're spending a fortune to keep your car running.

Financial experts, however, will tell you that it's generally a much better idea to either purchase or lease a brand-new vehicle. That's because while you may be spending more up front, you will benefit from the purchase and will save a great deal of money in the long run.

So pretend your website is a vehicle. If you have a site that was built in the last century and simply doesn’t work for your visitors as well as it once did, does it make sense to pay someone to fix the website over and over again? Generally, no. Just as with a brand-new car, it's generally a better idea to get a brand-new website rather than fixing up your old website. Unfortunately, websites don't tend to last as long as cars simply because technology changes at such a rapid rate. Because of this, you may find that you need to get a complete web makeover every four years or so.

But remember, with that new website you'll be able to add new functionality to websites and will be able to take advantage of the new technology, which may actually bring in more business.

How Will Your Site Hold Up?

One thing that all business experts recommend is that you think in long-term results, not short-term. Simply thinking about the short term would likely give you the same results that you get if you thought only about the short-term when you're playing chess – a loss. And when you're spending a fair amount of money, you don't want to leave anything to chance.

For instance there are many companies that think only about the short-term when it comes to search engine optimization. When it comes to SEO, most business owners find that they don't want to purchase a multi-month contract. They often tend to use a pay per click campaign, but that tends to not end well for anyone. It's easy to spend thousands of dollars on pay per click campaign and not get any results. At the same time, the moment you stop paying for your campaign, that's the moment you start losing revenue, if you had any to begin with the first place.

If, however, you look for a company who knows how to do organic search engine optimization you'll find that while you don't jump up the Google ladder instantly, over a few months time your business will be on the first page of Google and you never have to pay for click. In this instance thinking in the long term can save you a great deal of money.

Get Social

Social media is another instance where business owners tend to have the wrong type of thinking. For instance let's about Facebook ads. Investing in Facebook ads may seem like a great way to make money and to get interesting your company jumpstarted. The trick, however, is to make sure that you have a social media strategy instead of just paying for Facebook ads. Without the right strategy, all the money the sinking to the Facebook ads were pretty much disappear without getting you the results that you're hoping for.

A social media strategy, however, can help you to integrate social media into your website which can also help you to interact with your visitors as well as run campaigns, sweepstakes, and giveaways.

The best way to make sure that your business gets the attention that you want is to consult with a professional SEO expert. These SEO experts are able to help you to get the attention that you need and the potential clients that you want.

Farin Innovations is a web design company that specializes in custom website development, social media strategy, SEO, and content management system. If you’re looking for help to create, maintain, or revamp a website, feel free to give us a call or to fill out our contact form.