“Past investments are over, lost, gone forever. They are irrelevant to the future.”

Seth Godin’s recent post “Ignore sunk costs” shows a photo of a store front sign with the largest word spelled incorrectly, and suggests that “just because the guy spent a lot on the sign for his store doesn’t mean he shouldn’t spend more to spell the biggest word properly. The amount he already spent is irrelevant. What matters is what the benefit of spelling ’stationery’ properly will be.”

The same concept can be applied to your website. Yes, you may have sunk several thousands of dollars into having your website built 5 years ago,  but a lot has changed since then. More people have hi-speed internet access, better monitors, web browsers are more sophisticated and above all, web users are way more savvy and have higher expectations from websites that they visit. So, what have you done with your website since you had it done 5 years ago?

I know. You paid good money to have all that fancy Flash® animation done, and made sure that Pachelbel’s Canon plays on every page, but who cares? No, really, WHO CARES? Does it convert? I mean, are people actually going back to your website and saying, “OMG, I LOVE all those Flash® animations! I think I’ll buy more of their products!” NO! And I’m not speaking just about the “design” of your site, I’m talking usability, conversions, and yes… SEO.

Simply put, just having a brochure-type website and hoping that “If I build it, they will come” just doesn’t cut it anymore. It’s time to rethink your web presence. Don’t think about how much money you spent to have it done. That initial investment has already paid for itself. If it hasn’t, all the more reason to do something about it.

Like Seth says, “When making a choice between two options, only consider what’s going to happen in the future, not which investments you’ve made in the past.”