Changing Your Website Do’s and Do Not’s

There will come times when you want to re-do your website whether it’s a design change or updating to a CSS, PHP or CMS-driven site. I’ve done this multiple times throughout the years and there’s some things you should consider before you do anything:

1) Will the change benefit you? Will it make it easier for you to update? Will it make you site look more professional? Ask yourself these questions before you contemplate starting your project because doing something like this takes time.

2) If you think the changes will benefit you, ask yourself if you need to learn anything new. Do you have to learn some coding skills you don’t know? Will you have to install something yourself or not? If it’s something that you can handle, then it’s all good. Otherwise, if you cannot, try to find another solution or see if you can get some help whether it’s from your hosting provider or researching through books. Wait till you are ready to move on. This can be a big time-waster if you run around with no idea of what you’re doing.

3) Keep the new features to the minimum. Sometimes, we can get carried away with additions we want to make to the site. Try to keep it simple and only keep what you really need or have content for. If it’s something that people want in your site, they will contact you about it otherwise, don’t get too fancy.

4) Have everything done in advance before going live with the new design or if it’s a change to a CMS-style site, make sure you are ready to put in the time to re-build the content. Make sure you test your new design – no broken links, images show up properly, text is written right – before you update your site. And when you do update your site, make sure it’s at a time with the least traffic so your visitors will not be affected as much. If it’s something that till require more than one day, make sure you inform your visitors that changes will be made and will take time. Don’t be lax about bringing back content! It’s the bread and butter of your site. Without it, there’s not much reason for people to stay in your site.

Last but not least,

5) Keep all your old files and make backups. You never know when you need to look up something in it. ‘Sides, if something goes terribly wrong with the new site, you can revert to your former site with no problems.

Keep in mind that the larger your website becomes, the harder it is every time you change it unless you have it set up in certain ways. AS they say, “If it ain’t broke, why fix it?” ; )