Before you ever commit to a website makeover, ask yourself who the exercise is for. A structural rebuild to make it easier for your visitors to find stuff, or a new engine to make it easier for you to add things, are always worthwhile. But a makeover implies changing just the look and feel of the site, and most makeovers are requested (in my experience) because the company itself is bored with its website. That’s not a good reason to bring in the graphic designers. How bored do you think Amazon’s employees are with the company’s website? Very much. But my goodness, it works, so let’s just leave things as they are, shall we? So long as the design isn’t looking like it’s from the 1990s and thereby ruining the company’s branding, maybe it’s the content which should be taking priority. A large number of your website visitors – probably the majority – have never seen your website before, so don’t persuade yourself that it’s the audience who’s bored with the design. It’s only you.
If you have any reason to change the look of your site, be it boredom or moving out of the 90’s user testing would be my first call. Just because the site looks 20 years old it might work magnificently at communicating with customers and prospects.
In fact, even if you aren’t planning a change now is the right time to test what you have.