We hear a lot about the importance of regular redesigns in order to keep our sites fresh to our visitors. We also hear a great deal of emphasis on the importance of branding. But what is never mentioned is the paradox that can exist between these two objectives.

I'm not of the school that says that a regular redesign is essential to the continued success of your site. I do believe it can be helpful to stimulate renewed interest, but it's definitely not crucial if your current design is already effective. In fact, some of the most successful sites have gone through little to no redesign work for years. In some cases, I believe in some cases that their lack of redesigns may have helped them more than it hurt them. These are sites that people visit day in and day out, and they know exactly what to expect. There are no surprises. It's simple, easily accessible, and the visitors know exactly where to click, because the layout hasn't changed a bit over the years.

And that's what branding is all about.. it's not just the advertising. Not only do you want to do advertising to get your site's name etched into people's memories, and make your logo quickly recognizable by the masses, but you want the entire appearance to become somewhat familiar to your audience. For an example, what do golden arches make you think of? What does the restaurant itself look like on the outside? The inside? You can easily picture all of these things, because that company has gone to great lengths to maintain a certain consistency among all of their stores. And just look at their success. That's no coincidence.

So why redesign at all? Well, obviously, you'll want to keep up with new technology and web standards. Sometimes you have to make room for new and expanding content. You may wish to give your visitors a fresh perspective. Plus it's fun to redesign occasionally.

If you run a subscription-based site, then it may be especially important to redesign on occasion. These kinds of sites aren't updated with regular free content outside of the members-only area, and as such, are not geared toward acquiring bookmarkers (outside of the subscribers who have paid). You want people to come to your site, buy a membership on impulse, and then it's all about your member section.

But let's say a person has been to your tour 4 times from the search engines. If he hasn't bought a membership yet, then he's not going to. But perhaps a fresh design would change that. That's where redesigning becomes important. In fact, in instances like this, I may even choose to rotate designs so that a person will see a new face every time he or she loads the front page.

But in this instance, branding and recognition are really no less important. We just need to find a way to compromise. I do this by being as careful as possible when creating an initial design. I choose a color scheme that works. I create a logo that could be moved across multiple designs. I choose certain stylistic elements, and when I redesign, I stick with that style. I create all of my banners with a similar look that reflects the style of the site.

Now, when I redesign, my new design may use a new color scheme, but use the same sort of layout. It may use the same color scheme, but change in other ways. But certain trademark elements will always stay similar from redesign to redesign, so that people will know that they are visiting the same site. It will still be recognizable and familiar, yet offer some new content and a fresh new layout.

So if you feel that redesigning will be beneficial to your site, make sure that you are not completely sacrificing the branding and familiarity you've worked to gain through all of your promotion.

I'll talk more about branding, as well as redesigning, in future articles.