Let’s be honest: most teams treat a website launch like crossing a finish line. Big push, big sigh of relief, and then… silence.
But the reality? Your website doesn’t care that you’ve ticked it off the list. It only cares whether it still works for your customers tomorrow.
Every channel you invest in, Paid, Organic, Email, whatever, eventually lands people on your site.
If the information’s out of date, the tech is old, or the user journey feels like it was designed in a rush (because it probably was), you’re pouring budget into a leaky bucket.
This is why “ongoing development” isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s basic maintenance for a business that intends to stay competitive.
Three things I wish more teams would accept
1. A website isn’t a project - it’s a workstream.
Fixes, tweaks, new features, UX improvements… these aren’t emergencies. They’re part of keeping the thing alive. The teams that treat development as continuous tend to be miles ahead.
2. Small changes move the needle more than the big overhauls.
Everyone loves a shiny rebuild, but the gains usually come from iterative UX improvements, quick fixes, and resolving obvious friction. You don’t always need a grand redesign, sometimes, you just need to stop ignoring the obvious.
3. Your competitors are watching what works for you and copying it.
If you stand still for six months, you’ll feel it. They won’t.
A quick example
Our client, National Fostering Group, gets this right. Their site has undergone constant technical clean-ups, UX testing, new features, design refreshes, the lot.
One iterative change in particular (a pre-qualification tool) has now overtaken their standard enquiry form as the main conversion point. That happened because they kept improving it, not because they waited for the next “big rebuild”.
If your website hasn’t been touched in a while, don’t mistake silence for stability. Everything in digital shifts: user expectations, search behaviour, and your own proposition. Your site has to keep up.
Want the full breakdown?
The original, longer version of this piece, written by Account Manager William Sharp is available on the Door4.com
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