Small business owners need to monitor whether their investment in a website is providing a good return. Are your products and services easy to buy? If they aren't, you are wasting time and money and probably doing more harm than good.

Ask yourself the following five questions to see whether it's time for a redesign:

1. Has the size of the site grown substantially?

If your site continues to grow and change like most business sites, you need to evaluate whether its still meeting your objectives. As you add new products and services you need to re-organize your information. In addition, you should consider adding multimedia information (audio, video) to sharpen your message.

2. Is some of the content outdated or unnecessary?

Does your website have up-to-date content? Someone should be revising spec sheets, changing promotion dates and adding new material weekly. If your website appears static, it looks like you're not a serious business.

3. Is the most important content buried below?

Here's where you need to do an "easy to buy" audit. By that I mean you need to evaluate how easy it is to find information and actually buy your products. This sounds like common sense, but we've all purchased online and know that it can sometimes be frustrating.

4. Are you using the latest technology, instead of hard-coding?

If you created your website more than 18 months ago, you are probably due for a technology update. This is also true if you started with a very basic site and "hard-coded" everything. Ask your webmaster whether he has some suggestions. You can be sure he will.

5. Does the home page design suit your current business objectives?

Does your website communicate the depth and breadth of your current business? If you have changed the focus of your services, added new products or want to communicate a different face to your visitors, consider a redesign for your overall website.

Copyright 2005 Digital Media Works, Inc.