Yes, I heard you the first one hundred times. You hate your site. I know. What are you doing about it? Do you have a plan to make it better? Complaining about it will not get you anywhere. Having a redesign plan - will.

Plan. I can help you with that. I realize that you finally have had it. You want to erase everything and start over.

Before you do something drastic let's think rationally. Yes, your baby is ugly (thanks, Tim Ash for planting this in my head). However, it is too early to throw your baby away with the bath water.

Before you jump into redesigning your website, you need to plot your attack. You need to rely on your strong points and eliminate or improve your weak points. In other words, you need a website redesign plan.

I have a 3 step process for you to set you on the right track.

I was invited to join a women's marketing organization. It is a group that helps female consultants to better their business through collaboration and lead exchange. I am not a fan of leads exchange, but I enjoy collaboration. If all the members are pros in their field, I am very eager to learn. Then, I will be on my way to becoming a Superwoman Marketer.

This group came highly recommended, so I immediately went to their website. Who wouldn't, right? I wanted to see what the organization is all about and how I can benefit from joining.

I fired a vendor today. It broke my heart.

This vendor was a referral, comfortable they got the gig. I talked about requirements, about my goals and priorities for the job. I talked - they did not listen. Then I called, explained that it needs to be done differently. They agreed and stayed their course, following their process, leading to their result, not mine.

I tried to make it work. Finally, I had to pull the plug.

The reaction was a complete surprise. They did not see it coming. "Why didn't you say something if it was not done correctly?" they exclaimed. Well, I did, several times. Don't blame me. How unprofessional. I know, you are trying to excuse that you did not listen. Don't.

Didn't I talk about expectations and things not done right? Haven't I mentioned what I need done and what is important to me? Nothing changed. No concerns addressed. And in the end - shock at the fact that they lost a customer. They did not have to.

I am sure there are many reasons why nonprofits fail. Lack of people who are willing to donate is definitely not one of them. Some nonprifits have quite the opposite problem - even if you want to donate to them online, you can't. One important reason why nonprofits fail is bad websites.

I am not talking about bad visual design. The problem is that nonprofits fail to treat their websites as revenue-generating machines that they can be. They fail to utilize the power of the Internet. Specifically, nonprofits fail to provide an easy way for people to support their cause, to give them money.

Here is what I mean. I spent hours today trying to donate money to an organization that supports small businesses. I had a list of candidates and I was visiting site after site and not donating. The only reason was that those nonprofit organizations failed to put "Donate" button on the website. How sad.

Everyone has a website. Every business has a website. Many dogs have websites too.

How is your website doing? When was the last time you took its temperature? Updated its content? Hugged it for making you so much money?

For many people, especially small business owners, having a website is a chore. They have no time for it. Making changes is too complicated and time consuming. And if they get hacked - forget it! They wish they never had to deal with it.

It is possible that a lot of business owners do not feel they understand their website. They also rarely know how much money their website is making them, how much new business is a direct result of their online presence.

If you want to simplify your life, listen up. Use these tools once a month for reporting and as needed for updating. Track your success and fix problems quickly. Give your website some love and care. Then, watch it give back in ROI like you never seen before.