You can think of your website like an iPhone. First year is the honeymoon. Second and third years you begin to notice your phone needs recharging a bit more often. By year four you have "favorite charging spots" at airports, and actively recharge in between events. After year four you are living on borrowed time.

In the same way, the Internet, coding, design – all keep evolving, while your website code – which is basically frozen in time – doesn't. Visually it begins to fall apart bit by bit as standards in CSS, HTML, PHP, etc. change the playing field of your web browsers. Newer technology delivers innovations that you experience at other websites – but not your own. Resentment grows. You login less often. Finally, you walk away.

Your abandoned website finds itself on death row just waiting for hackers, expired domains, or forgotten hosting bills to put it out of your misery. Regular updates and back ups are driven more by security, and they do not address the infrastructure or design of your website.

So where do you begin with a redesign? It's better to begin with a review of how your website is working (or not) for you and your website visitors before you explore different platforms or hosting. And as you do explore those, you'll want to double check first things like email, ecommerce and user accounts.

To make this easier, I've created a simple worksheet to get you started: Rethinking Redesign: Website Redesign Worksheet

See also: Pocket Webmaster: The Ultimate, Must-Have, Quick Reference Guide for Anyone Who Manages a Website – the collected strategy, smart ideas, organized approach and simple, easy-to-understand explanations that every website manager needs at their fingertips – whether you are an entrepreneur, or managing a web team, a nonprofit board member, or small business owner.