How to Know When to Rebuild Your Website
October 5, 2021
Your website is your most important marketing tool. You need it running at peak performance. Do you know when the time is right to rebuild your website? We work with DMOs across the country, and we hear a lot about MarTech challenges. Common pain points are often about destination websites.
- “Our website is running so slow!”
- “Working with our vendor is a headache.”
- “It takes forever to make changes to our website.”
- “Our website doesn’t do our brand justice.”
- “Our marketing strategy has outgrown our website.”
Do any of these sound familiar? If so, it might be time to rebuild your website.
See how Madden rebuilt Atlanta CVB’s website.
Troubleshooting Your Website
Our partners have a lot of websites challenges, but we’ve found that they all fit under one of three key themes:
- Technology troubles on the backend
- Lackluster design and layout
- Lack of integration with the overall marketing campaign
Sometimes, these challenges are easily addressed with small tweaks or updates. However, some issues require a full rebuild. Here are some tips to help you identify when the time is right to rebuild.
Back-End Tech Trouble
When websites are not performing well there are often numerous backend problems that cause sites to slow down, and affect your SEO. Some common problems include, too many third party integrations, incorrect or inconsistent tags, metadata issues, missing or invalid H1 tags, and more.
Sometimes, these problems are solved by addressing each problem individually, chipping away at the problems incrementally. However, this can be costly if your problems have piled up over time, and often if your website is running slow, there are numerous issues that could be costly to fix.
Aside from the cost, there are also potential workflow issues that create bottlenecks. Many of our partners who work with other developers have trouble with ticket systems or turnaround times, so issues are not solved in a timely manner.
Stale Creative Concept
Rebranding or deploying a new creative strategy is exciting! Getting a new logo, colors, typography, and creative assets makes our DMO partners proud, and they rightfully want to show off their new brand. However, we hear many of our partners are frustrated that their website does not do their new brand justice.
To address this, some partners have tweaked their layouts or added more elements to their existing website. However, many of their websites were created around the old brand, and their platforms are not dynamic enough to properly showcase their new brand.
Other times, we hear partners wanting to update their websites with videos and photos more frequently. For example, swapping out creative assets quarterly to showcase seasonally appropriate brand assets. However, some partners do not have access or an easy way to update creative assets, so there is a visual dissonance on their website while they wait to have assets updated by vendors.
No Alignment with Overall Strategy
As time passes, marketing strategies evolve with changing objectives, campaigns, and emerging innovations. It’s vitally important that your website be optimized to work in concert with your other marketing tactics. For example, if your marketing strategy is targeting meeting planners and you have tactics driving them to your website, your website should include a meetings-specific landing page, virtual tours of your venues, forms to submit RFPs, and more.
Some platforms allow DMOs to create additional elements on their websites, but years of building and building onto a site could create a “Frankenstein’s Monster” effect with incongruent content and an incohesive look and feel. In some instances, platforms do not allow DMOs to easily add elements to their websites and what ends up happening is ineffective websites or delays due to vendors.
Know When It’s Time to Rebuild Your Website
Through talking with our partners who have undergone a website rebuild, we’ve found they have a more effective website, more efficiently use resources, and can more easily manage their website.
You might be experiencing some of the challenges we discussed in this deck, but you’re still asking yourself if rebuilding your website is the right solution. Here’s how Madden approaches that question with our partners:
Would you rather…
| Invest resources building a responsive website OR | Invest resources into a sub-optimal website |
| Create a dynamic, beautiful website OR | Try to beautify your static web pages |
| Seamlessly integrate with your strategy OR | Have a stagnant website that is quickly outdated |
| Take control of your website OR | Rely on vendors and developers |
If you chose the options on the left, rebuilding your website is the right choice for you.
