If you've been reading this blog over the past year, you probably know by now how strongly I believe in a vibrant web presence. I'm excited to announce that our webmaster, Allisyn Deyo, has been hard at work redesigning our company websites, and the first one finished is GIFTSHOPMag.com. I hope you'll check it out—especially the online exclusive content—and let us know what you think. We love feedback!

Here are five tips for you if you're thinking of redesigning your site:

Let your end goal of more sales drive your redesign. After all, the goal of redesigning your website is not just to have it look pretty and be easier for people to use. You want it to drive more traffic, increase the average time people spend on it and give them a reason to come back. As you consider the elements to change think about what you look for on a website. A list of related content next to something you're looking at? The most popular articles that people are currently reading? Commenting on a feature article that is important to you? Whatever it is, make sure you incorporate it. And if your current employee (or company who builds your site) can't do it, find someone who can.

Make sure you protect your assets. You don't want to lose valuable search engine rankings when you redesign, so be sure to use your stats to gauge what pages have the most incoming links and redirect them. Create a specific error page that says, "hi, we've redesigned, please use search and thank you!" and put a search box at the end of that sentence. And create a list of your main category, shopping and general site pages and institute permanent redirects. You'd be surprised how many people use links from a year ago!

Create a dynamic website that you can edit. Make sure when you redesign that you're able to make all the updates you want to the site yourself, rather than relying on a hosting company to make changes. If you're a smaller site, have the person who builds your site do it using software that you can use easily (such as Wordpress or Drupal)—again, if they can't do that, find someone who can. You might spend more than you were hoping too for the site design, but you will save lots of money in the long run making small changes yourself.

Deliver quality content. Consider adding a blog, weekly special reports, recipes or other elements that will reward customers for returning to your site.

Understand and monitor the metrics. Work with your webmaster to ensure you can get regular metrics for your site, and keep a close eye on them as you make changes.