How Often Should You Refresh Ecommerce Sites

*Click to read the affiliate disclaimer*

(Last Updated On: )

It’s never been easier to start an ecommerce website. Whenever I’m starting a brand new project, I often find myself having an internal fight as to whether I opt to challenge myself with a WordPress build, or if I take the easier (and pricier) route by quickly whipping something together on Shopify. For those that have been there before, you can get a new ecommerce site up and running in a week. Usually the main factor determining how quickly you get things off the ground is the quantity of SKUs, which may mean few or many categories.

Updating a website can really take its toll on you, especially if you don’t really know what you’re doing. Once you start playing around with clever plugins and incorporate feature-rich themes into the situation, what you might otherwise think is a simple process can escalate into a nightmare project. Many a time, I’ve retreated from a website update back to the original version, because I’ve bitten off more than I can chew.

While I’ve made a rule of never paying anyone else to do any web development work for me (because I need to figure out these problems myself) I’ve lost count of the amount of times I should have just asked someone else to handle with issues I’ve run into. If you do need to turn to an expert, it can be difficult to know how much is a reasonable amount for the project. However, it may be the only way to get you to the goal website you’re aiming for.

So how often should you refresh your website? Here are a few questions I usually ask myself before I decide that it’s time for change:

1. Is it an Old Theme?

There are times when a 2012 theme is so damn good that you just want to stick with it. They may have perfected it the first time around and you just don’t want to let go of it. But the web development world doesn’t stop moving. Even the classics get updated from time to time, and you need to keep up with the progression taking place. You don’t have to have a rigid and flat-feeling site these days, if you don’t want to.

I haven’t had any of my ecommerce sites for more than five years, but I would say that’s a fair amount of time to have a theme before you should consider possibly moving on to a new one. The last thing you want is for a new customer to land on your site and for them to feel like they’ve gone back in time to a different web era.

2. Are Your Customers Likely to Return?

Lots of us make ecommerce sites purely because we can see opportunity with certain keywords. We can see that there’s interest online that isn’t being exploited properly, so we jump in there to claim that portion of the traffic and get a few sales. For a lot of these sites, the plan is short-sighted, but can be extremely profitable from its very early days. That said, you’re probably not thinking too much about returning customers. Well, you should start thinking about them by using an SEO company to help your web page and content show up on the top of the first page of a search engine query. That’s where people should find you when they want to shop. If your site is any further back on page two or three, they may look elsewhere.

Generally speaking, it’s unlikely that you would need to update your website all that often if you don’t many of your customers are going to return for more. Again, you definitely need to make sure that the first impression counts and that the look and feel helps to convert them to customers, but you don’t have to worry about your site looking stale if it hasn’t been updated in a while. Most people are only coming to see you once, after all

3. Can You Make All the Changes Yourself?

This is a big one. If you know that the changes are something you can do on your own – provided you can find the time – it’s usually a much easier decision as to whether or not you go ahead with it. If you know that this is a project that goes well beyond your means, you’re going to have to have a clear idea of what you’re briefing, what good results would look like and a timescale for everything.

4. Will New Imagery Fix It?

As someone that has offered web development services in the past, I know all too well how much clients underestimate how much of a website’s aesthetics comes down to the imagery they use. If they’re unable to supply professional-looking photography of their product/services, then of course their website won’t look as good as the template they’re looking at.

When you know it’s time for a change, but don’t really want to go through the hassle of a long, drawn-out rebuild project, new photography will often give the desired effect. If the change in photos doesn’t quite do it, you might have to go further. This quick fix usually does the job though, provided you have a relatively modern theme.