There's something captivating about starting over. Websites, in accordance with best practices, design, content, and user experience, can become ineffective quickly. However, a new website design costs labor, time, and money. So, before you start redesigning your website, be sure the moment is right.
With the fast pace of digital marketing, having an outdated website might hurt your brand. ‘Why should I redesign my website?’ ‘Do I need to redesign my website in order to compete or rank higher in search results?’ These questions frequently occur when a business's branding changes or other issues arise. If you’re facing any challenges with your business website and want to configure or customize it, contact a reputable team of website builders like Smartlydone.com and others to support you along the way in redesigning your website.
Below are signs that show a website needs a revamp:
1. Your Website Has A Low Ranking In The Search Engines
The truth is, the majority of internet transactions begin with a search engine such as Google. That said, search engine optimization (SEO) is indeed a major factor in your digital presence. Google gives priority to well-designed, fast-loading websites with high-quality content. If it's been a while since your last revamp, chances are your site isn't as highly rated on Google as it could be.
SEO has an effect on the position of your website when a prospective buyer does a search for the products you offer. For instance, if a customer searches for 'laser cutting,' would your laser cutting business website appear on the first page or on page 100 of search results? 75% of visitors never browse past the first page, which indicates that your potential clients are more than likely visiting your competitors' websites who are positioned on page 1.
This is a big warning sign if your ranking has decreased despite increased internet visibility and larger-than-normal marketing spending. Therefore, take Google's response to your site seriously.
2. It’s Too Slow To Load
Users tend to leave websites that take longer than ten seconds to load. A user's patience before pushing the upper x button normally lasts for ten seconds only. Your users should be able to quickly access your website and obtain the information they search; otherwise, they’ll drop out of it and go to another website.
A website's loading time is a technical factor in the site's design. Heavy images, poor content distribution, pages loaded with non-web-optimized graphic features, and hosting all add seconds to a page's architecture, affecting the performance.
Reducing picture sizes or migrating the site are options to solve this, but if the website's base is poor, a redesign is the best choice.
3. It Isn’t Mobile-Friendly
Have you eaten out recently? Most people have meals while looking at their smartphones. They don't carry their PCs, do they? What do they do with their phones? Mostly, checking the internet. The point is, if your site isn't mobile-friendly, you're losing out.
Mobile usage is increasing; thus, your site must be 'responsive' to that trend. If your site isn't mobile-friendly, users will struggle to browse, navigate, and click links. They'll be displeased and frustrated by the extra effort it takes to find and hit what they want to click. Some may even quit the non-responsive site to go to another that’s responsive and quicker.
4. It Doesn’t Reflect Your Current Brand
It's natural for business developments to lead to brand transformation. As a result, you may have a site that no longer represents your brand. Product or service development, or an acquisition, all affect your brand and need to be conveyed throughout your website.
Is your website relevant to your brand? There should be no mismatch between your brand and your website. Having a webpage with separate messaging from your main business can confuse prospects and turn them off. Consistency is crucial when conveying brand messaging across several platforms.
Even if your site is attractively created, it needs to be redesigned to meet your current company identity.
5. Your Website’s Security System Is Weak
Hackers also target websites. Your website's security is crucial; thus, you must be aware of any security flaws. To overcome this issue, you must secure your website as much as possible.
Hackers can easily access your data if your website has a poor foundation or weak security system. If your website is hacked, recovering all data would be difficult. As a result, it’s critical to take preventative countermeasures. It's much better to redesign your website and make it secure than to wait until it has been compromised and have to start over with no data.
Moreover, if you already see your website has an unexplained issue like you see links to questionable sites and wonder how they got there, you eliminate them, and five more show up for every one you deleted, that’s a headache. Unattended websites like abandoned residences can get infested with viruses. So, instead of improving customer support, you spend time diagnosing and providing technical help. And it can be exhausting to constantly examine website problems wondering why a given site function doesn't work as intended.
6. The Customers Are Complaining
In general, customers complaining about your product, internal processes, or website allows you to assess and improve to prevent future complaints. Clients who have their problems immediately resolved typically become loyal and even become brand supporters. Simply said, immediately resolving a consumer complaint can be quite profitable.
If the customers complained about your website being ugly and complicated, they should be addressed in any way possible. Have you ever encountered a website that appears to be from the 1990s, with a thousand different things happening at the same time? You're at a loss for what to focus and click on, and there are so many options that your head hurts. You sure don't want to own that website.
When it comes to selections, fewer is better. Simplicity is key. And according to a recent web design study, if the website is crowded with a lot of unnecessary content, it’ll cause a visitor to click the back button.
Consider how many times you've had positive or negative experiences with businesses. For every vocal user, there are many others that remain silent. Probably, for every customer that speaks up, there are twenty others who don’t. Therefore, pay attention to customer comments. If a customer complains about your website, it's time for redesigning, or at least refreshing it.
7. Engagement Is Low
Another one is low engagement. Customers are vital because they provide revenue, and businesses can’t function without them. Having said that, you should consider measuring how visitors engage with a site. This can give you an idea to understand what’s happening on your website and know where it failed and succeeded, as well as assess what to do to improve it. This approach can quantify a user's experience duration and depth. A user engaging with a site indicates that the content is appealing and easily accessible. However, utilizing your best-performing pages as a guide might help you set engagement targets.
Session duration is a simple engagement metric. Google Analytics analyzes how long visitors spend on each page. Although not always accurate, session duration is a helpful tool to evaluate engagement.
If engagement is low, consider a redesign. Unattractive content or style will turn off website visitors. If any of these symptoms seem familiar, don't delay. Slow, ugly, or unresponsive websites will make you lose money.
Website Redesigning Checklist
Spending time on research and planning can help reduce risk and guesswork while redesigning a website. Here's a checklist to help you redesign your website:
- Set Goals. Before you start planning your website makeover, decide what you want to achieve. Every website has objectives, including increasing revenue or building a community. Smaller goals like generating traffic or getting people to join up for your email list may help you reach your larger goals.
- Measure Your Website Metrics. Look for data trends that indicate what themes, CTAs, and design aspects your audience likes. Also, make sure the audience you're attracting currently is the one you want to target. Your website and marketing may need to change to reach the proper individuals.
- Make A Buyer Persona. It's very important that your website design appeals to your target audience than it is to you. To make your website function for the people who use it, every design decision must have the target market in mind.
- Find A Designer Or Web Builder. After completing your study and strategy, the following step is to design your new website. You can either hire a web designer or use a website builder.
- Test Your Website. Don't publish your website until you're done checking the finished output.
Conclusion
When you're ready for a revamp, plan and budget appropriately. Work together with professionals to create an attractive, easy-to-navigate website that'll make your company survive.
Your website is a very important asset. Every business competes on the same global stage, so keeping up with the current technology and trend is imperative. Without a well-designed and functional website, you’ll quickly lose customers. Keep an eye on your website and know when to redesign.
