Does your website need work? Many small businesses coast with a website designed a few years ago and don’t want to invest the time or money into a redesign. However, if your website is getting old, it may cost you far more than that in lost business and reduced traffic.
An up-to-date website tells your customers you care about your online presence. With more customers looking for products and services online first, your “digital storefront” needs to be up to prime time.
There are several signs that your website needs a redesign. Here are 10 of the most common.
1. Outdated Visual Design
If your website looks like it was designed in the ’00s, it may be time for an update. Trends in website design change, and while you don’t have to be up-to-the-minute, you don’t want it to look like you haven’t touched your site in years.
First impressions impact user engagement, and a bad first impression will increase bounce rates. Of course, retro design is coming back in some places, but ensure your website is intentionally retro. Other design trends include fun content preloaders, soft colors, and unique animations.
2. Poor User Experience (UX)
Can your customers find everything they need? Confusing navigation is a fast way to send prospects elsewhere. Site structure should be intuitive and efficient, with pages where they make sense. Have various people test your website and give feedback.
Accessibility is also vital. Some common accessibility issues people tend to forget are a quick way to turn off large screen animations (which can induce motion sickness), not providing information solely through color, and not making sure all text is screenreader friendly.
3. Slow Page Load Times
According to Google statistics, 53% of website visitors leave if a page takes more than three seconds to load on mobile. Even on a desktop, people typically expect a page to load in a second or two and may go to another site if it takes too long.
While you can’t control your customers’ internet speed, especially on mobile, you can do things to enhance your website’s performance. This includes minimizing HTTP requests such as scripts, minifying and combining files, using asynchronous loading, and choosing a good hosting option. Optimizing your website is something that a developer can do as part of a redesign.
4. Non-Responsive Design
Does your website look good on screens of all sizes? With modern code, you don’t need to worry. Responsive design reconfigures your website so it looks just as good on a 6″ phone, a 10″ tablet, or a 42″ desktop.
If your website does not use responsive design, you are leaving money on the table. Many people only use a phone or tablet to access the internet, and responsive design ensures everyone can find everything. Always test your website on a variety of devices.
5. Declining Search Engine Rankings
Slow page speed, non-responsive design, poor UX—all of these increase bounce rate, which can tank your search engine rankings. On top of that, your elderly website may not be well-optimized for current SEO.
While content is the best way to optimize for SEO, you can also work on things like proper use of meta tags, a good site layout, etc. Search bots these days are designed to check things like page parents to make sure the site layout is intuitive, read tags, read image alt text, etc.
Your web design may be at fault if your search engine rankings consistently decrease.
6. High Bounce Rates
We’ve already mentioned some reasons why web users might go elsewhere. Your bounce rate is a measure of how many people take one look at your website and promptly leave. The top reasons for a high bounce rate are:
Slow loading
Misleading titles or descriptions
Technical errors
A bad or misleading link from somebody else (not easy to fix)
Low-quality content
Bad UX
Non-responsive design
Pop-ups asking for information
Inaccessible design
The opposite of the bounce rate is the engagement rate in Google Analytics. Google defines an engaged session as:
A session that lasts longer than 10 seconds, or a session that has at least one conversion event, or two or more page views.
7. Inconsistent Branding
Does every page on your website follow your brand? Are the aesthetics aligned? Did you miss any web pages if you changed your branding at some point? If your old logo is hanging out somewhere, chilling, you have a branding issue.
Make sure your website aligns with your social media and any print materials you put out. For example, restaurants should match the aesthetics of their websites and menus.
Consider your brand identity and use appropriate colors, logos, fonts, and images consistently across the entire site.
8. Difficult Content Management
Do you groan every time you need to post an update to your website? If so, it might be time to optimize your CMS. WordPress and other modern CMS platforms are much more user-friendly and let you post a new blog post or image quickly.
If content management is taking too much of your time, it might be time for a website redesign to move to an easier-to-use platform.
9. Security Vulnerabilities
There are a surprising number of sites out there whose URLs still start with http. If this is your site, then you need to fix it quickly. But you should also look for other common vulnerabilities. Make sure your security certificate is up to date, and be particularly careful with cross-site scripting. Always use strong admin passwords.
Getting your website scanned for security issues is fast and easy and can even be free. You want to make sure your website does not host malware or crash people’s computers.
10. Competitive Disadvantage
How does your website compare with that of your competitors? If your website is outdated and your nearest competitor has something bright, shiny, and new, you will be at a major disadvantage.
Look at your competitors. Don’t steal their ideas, but make sure you’re competing in the same league. At the same time, don’t rest on your laurels if their site looks awful. There are still other reasons it might need a refresh.
The biggest sign that your website needs a redesign is declining search rankings, but make sure you aren’t offering ugly design, a poor user experience, a slow site that doesn’t work on mobile, or one that doesn’t match the rest of your branding.
If you’re in doubt, a website audit is a great way to determine what work your website needs. Contact Headway Marketing to schedule a free website audit to see if your company’s digital storefront is still doing its job.
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