Need to Constantly Evolve a Web Site

October 18, 2016

As a Web designer, I’m constantly talking with clients and potential clients who haven’t updated their sites in years. Sometimes it extends beyond a decade. Think about your own business and ask yourself if there have been changes in the last decade? What about the last couple of years? Or even the last couple months? No matter the size of the business, there are often changes made on a regular basis.

I often make updates to our own sites at least once a month with some sites (such as this blog) being updated nearly every day. Today I want to share the evolution of our Vehicle Templates Unleashed site over the past couple of years.

As longtime readers are aware, there was a time when most everything we did was part of the unleash.com domain. From 2008 through most of 2014, our vehicle templates product was promoted in a section of the unleash.com site. During that time, we made many updates. But our potentials customers were confused as so much of the content on our site was related to CorelDRAW. Yes, the vehicle templates work in a number of graphics software products.

In the fall of 2014, we made the decision to launch a separate Web site specifically for the vehicle templates product and a handful of related products. This new site, Vehicle Templates Unleashed, only offered payment via PayPal and directed customers back to the unleash.com site for credit card purchases. There were some technical reasons we had to do this initially.

In the summer of 2015, we made the decision that we were going to massively overhaul the unleash.com site and that meant we had to move credit card sales to the dedicated Vehicle Templates Unleashed site. This meant installing an SSL certificate on the site as well as a shopping cart system.

Over the past year, there were a number of other changes that were made. Adding some content, modifying other content and adding some additional products. Even though answers to common questions were on the site, customers weren’t finding them as often as we would like. We wanted to made some additional changes and found it difficult using the WordPress theme we had originally chosen. Choosing the right theme is important!

Divi WordPress ThemeIn the past week, we changed the WordPress theme to one of our favorites. We now use the Divi theme on a number of the Unleashed sites. Having the Divi theme allowed us to make the other changes we wanted on the site. While I would like to think the site is perfect right now, I know there will be other changes made sooner rather than later.

Why do I know there will be more changes? Customers will give us feedback on ways we can provide product information more clearly. Or they will suggest a way that we can provide better navigation to the information. A Web site is always evolving. If your site isn’t evolving, it probably is under performing!

Post Discussion

3 Comments

  1. Bob Hagel

    I began using Divi Builder and the Divi theme after my previous WordPress theme did not work because the theme maker did not keep it up to date. I was able to recreate my 40 page website in a weekend. Since then, I have been tweaking it using all that I have learned. It is truly an amazing tool, particularly for those who don’t build websites often. The new WSIWG (visual) interface is excellent. You see what you build as you build it. The staff are an incredible group of people who respond very quickly and actually answer your questions. They provide even more than what you have asked.GO ELEGANT THEMES!

    Reply
    • Foster D. Coburn III

      Bob, so glad to hear that Divi has been useful to you and easy to understand. We love that it is so flexible and yet incredibly powerful. As for updates, the staff is great about releases very regular updates with fixes and new features.

      Reply
  2. Stephen Dyer

    I actually made a rubber stamp website about 16 years ago and only recently updated it with a new domain name and responsive website. It earned income for all it’s life, about the only thing I updated over the 16 years was the pricing. (too busy with other things) The new site is performing better. http://www.stampsplus.com.au

    Reply

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

You May Also Like…

Website Analysis Unleashed

Let Us Analyze Your Website and Provide Actions to Take

Each week I visit hundreds of Web sites. I see some great ones and I see some that need a lot of help. There are also many sites somewhere in the middle that need some tweaks to improve drastically. As I spend my days building sites for clients,...

Read More

Business Improvement 2020

Boosting Your Business in the New Year and New Decade

How did you promote your business when 2010 rolled over on the calendar? Did you even have a business ten years ago? Maybe you were part of a different business. The same questions could be asked about where things stood even a year ago. Let's...

Read More

Seamless Textures Unleashed

Seamless Textures Unleashed Now on Facebook

Over the years, we've had a number of Web sites in different areas that were all managed on the Graphics Unleashed Facebook page. Two months ago we rolled out a separate Facebook page for Vehicle Templates Unleashed. Now we have created a...

Read More

Foster D. Coburn III

Foster D. Coburn III built his first Web site in 1995 and he has been working exclusively in WordPress since 2013. He has used the Divi theme exclusively since 2015. Earlier in his career he was the author of 13 best-selling books on CorelDRAW and has been a contributor to numerous technology and graphics-related magazines. Foster has taken many projects, including this Web site, from the early design stage through to a finished piece. He has been a featured speaker at many graphics conferences.

Recent Posts

Web Design Blog

Graphics Unleashed Donations

$
Personal Info

Donation Total: $5

Build Divi WordPress Site
WordPress Site Care
Divi Tools
Graphics Unleashed Logo