The time will come when simple updates to the company website just aren't enough, and a complete refresh of the site is called for.  For most business this is an exciting project that can have a big dollar and cents payoff. A well done site renovation will, among other things, help drive new revenue though improved SEO and increased conversion. Unfortunately, when setting out on a web re-design project, human nature can lead us to make some potentially costly mistakes. Here's how you can avoid some of those mistakes and get the most out of your website renovation.

First, remember that your website is a  business tool. Treat it as such.  Set specific goals for the new site and have a system in place to measure success against those goals. Forgetting this step, and jumping straight to the fun of site design (e.g. "what's it going to look like?"), is one of the most common and costliest mistakes that a business can make with their website renovation.  To get it right, it is essential to take the  time to really understand what the old site was and in what specific ways the new site needs to perform better.

Unless the website renovation has been prompted by a seismic shift that makes much of the old site irrelevant ,start with the data from your site analytics package to get a handle on where  your site is currently.  Where your traffic is coming from, page views, unique visitors, conversion rates, top performing key words, etc. This sets a performance baseline for the new site.  As a side note: There's really no excuse not to have a site analytics package. Google Analytics is free, powerful and relatively easy to configure.  Get it installed on your current site and get some data before moving on. The risks of operating without the information are just too great - but that's another post. Once you have specific data around your current site, you can use this infornmation to benchmark and better plan and optimize your udpated website.

Another all too common mistake is engaging SEO expertise too late. Even if you’re happy with your current rankings and improving SEO is not a goal, engaging SEO expertise early in the process  can save a ton of hassle and cash. Site layout, coding, file names, software, content, directory structure, the transition plan from old site to new, and a host of other things can have an effect on the site’s search readiness. It is much easier and less expensive to make sure these are addressed early in the process versus trying to retrofit a finished site or, worse still, trying to re-gain lost search rankings and missed revenue.

Get these basic things right, and your site renovation will be well ahead of the competition  - and you'll have saved time, money and heartache to boot.

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