Redesigning your website is like performing plastic surgery on it. Your website loses its current identity (for the better or worse) and your regular visitors might not recognise your new design at first glance. You risk losing them just because they thought they landed on the wrong page. Hence, it is very important that you retain a characteristic feature from your old layout. Perhaps it is the logo of your site; perhaps it is the same text style for the title for your site.

To play it safe, put a poll on your site to let your visitors do the talking. If they think it is necessary for the website to have a fresh look, give it to them!

I am personally guilty of redesigning many, many times. My very first website, Stitching the Night Away has been around since about 2001 and has had at least 5 or 6 different looks on the main website, including a change just recently. The blog that I have there has had probably a dozen or so templates on it in addition to that! And then the message board, many looks there too! But, the last several changes have all maintained a logo on them and that made a huge difference in how happy I was and how happy my regular visitors were. A logo is like a friendly face at the local grocery store, it lets you know that you’re in the right place.

[tags]website redesign, website design, web design[/tags]