// WIDSIX WRITTEN WORD //
Signs It’s Time for a Website Redesign
The evolution of the Internet and technology in general never quite slows down. In fact, it seems like things are changing at an increasingly rapid rate every single day. Unfortunately, those who don’t keep up get left behind.
One of your key priorities within your web presence should be your website. Your website is your home base. It’s where people come to learn more about your business, view your content, and seek answers to their biggest questions. If you deal in e-commerce, it is also where they actually go to make purchases. So yeah, keeping your website up-to-date is preeetty important. But how can you tell if it’s time for a facelift? After all, website redesign isn’t exactly cheap, especially if you’re needing a pretty large overhaul. This article will help you assess your website to determine whether or not you need to update your site. That said, here are the major signs it’s time for a website redesign!
1. Your website is not mobile-friendly.
A website that is not optimized for mobile is business suicide at this point. Nearly half of mobile users switch to your competitor instead after a bad experience with your mobile site, because businesses that have an inoperable mobile site are perceived by customers not to care about their experience.
Let’s say you’re bored in the waiting room of the doctor’s office and you get the sudden urge to purchase a pair of Nike running shoes that you just saw featured in a commercial on the television. You pull up the website, fully intending to order that pair of shoes, only to find that their mobile site is such a mess that you can’t even find the shoes you’re looking for, let alone place an order.
A number of things might happen after this, none of which includes Nike winning that sale from you. You may visit a competitor’s, say, Adidas’ website, to purchase a pair of their shoes on a mobile site that actually works. But, more likely than not, you will almost immediately close out of the site and the impulse to buy will quickly fade. And with that, Nike lost a sale and potentially even a customer if it was a bad enough experience.
2. Your content is outdated.
Outdated content is a big yikes. This could range from simply old information that is no longer relevant, to full-blown inaccuracies that will confuse and even enrage visitors when they come to realize you effectively deceived them, even if it was a simple case of failing to update your website. Content should be updated on a regular basis, and should be easy to do yourself or by your team without having to hire a professional developer — basically, there’s no excuse to have outdated and inaccurate content sitting on your site.
Old content is typically a sign of even deeper issues, because if you haven’t updated your content, the other unseen elements of your site probably haven’t been reworked either. This will drag down your perceived authenticity and authority, and visitors will quickly be able to tell that you aren’t truly invested in enhancing their experience.
3. Your website ranks poorly on search engines.
SEO is an element that needs constant updating in order for your site and business to remain relevant to Google’s algorithm. Google updates their algorithm often to ensure that users are seeing the best content possible within their search results, and your competitors are likely making changes to their sites in an effort to outrank you. Therefore, if you wanna keep up, you absolutely have to make sure your SEO is squared away.
4. Your conversion rate is low.
If your visitor-to-conversion rates are low, this might indicate something is not quite right with your site. Having tons of visitors to your site is great and all, but if they’re consistently not performing the desired actions, then your site is virtually useless and you’re losing out on tons of potential customers. To fix this will require some sleuthing on your part, but once you nail down the issues or set of issues, you can have a developer come in and make adjustments. Keep an eye on your ratio in the following weeks to ensure you’ve solved the issue.
5. Your pages load extremely slowly.
According to Kissmetrics, 47 percent of visitors expect a website to load in less than 2 seconds, and 40 percent of visitors will leave the website if the loading process takes more than 3 seconds. If your pages aren’t populating quickly, you’ll want to sort that out ASAP. To test the loading speed of your page, you can use Google’s Test My Site or PageSpeed Insights.
Do YOU need a website overhaul?
After reading this article, do you think it may be time to freshen up your site? It’s never a bad idea to stay on top of updates over the long term, as opposed to waiting until they stack up and you have to perform an entire overhaul. If you’ve read this article and you’re still not sure, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at [email protected] or via phone at (602) 900-1773 for a comprehensive website audit, free of charge.
