How Do You Know When It’s Time to Redesign Your Website?
To keep your website fresh, appealing and useful, be aware of the latest trends in technology.
Take note:
What was appealing yesterday could be passe today.
An outdated website can make you look unprofessional or unreliable, eliminate user access and reduce your overall traffic. Perception of a dated website varies, but, in general, here are the signals that you need to revamp your website.
Sub-Par Search Rankings
Visibility is critical.
If you are going to gain customers or clients, you need to be at or near the top rank of search results or at least appear on the first page. Search for your website using keyword terms.
Is your site on the first page?
Out-of-Date Content and Images
Nothing is as irrelevant as yesterday’s news.
Ask yourself the following questions…
How timely is the content on your website? Do the images look dated? Does the website reflect your current objectives and values for today’s market, or does it sound more like the original business plan you created years ago?
Overcrowded Pages
You have so much to say about your company or organization that it’s tempting to put it all on the landing page.
Remember that breathing room or whitespace lets readers focus the most important ideas, and they can always click on certain words or phrases for details elsewhere on the site. Do you have too much information on the home page?
Does the content look squeezed overall?
Mobile-Unfriendly or Unresponsive Site
If you’re a typical individual, you check your phone many times a day.
Website viewers are relying more on mobile devices than desktop computers. Google search rankings penalize non-responsive websites.
Ask yourself:
How good does your website look on a smartphone? Is it mobile responsive?
Slow Loading Time
Today’s busy people want everything in a hurry.
If your website loads slowly, viewers may switch to another one for the same product or service.
Ask yourself:
How quickly does your website load? How quickly does your competitor’s website load?
No Content Management System (CMS)
Using a CMS enables multiple users with different permission levels to access content without HTML or programming knowledge.
Is it tedious to make changes to your website?
Big Bounce Rate
People should be reading everything on your website, not just the home page. The bounce rate tells you the percentage of people who left without clicking through to any other pages.
Do you know your website’s current bounce rate?
Creeping Conversion Rate
If sales are dropping, website traffic is slowing down and other communications have come to a standstill, you have a problem.
What is your website’s conversion rate?
Freedom from Flash
Flash was the big thing at one time, but it is slow loading, difficult to display on mobile devices and unreadable on web browsers. These factors have a negative impact on your search engine rankings.
Have you removed flash from your website?
And One More Thing…
You may still love the original design of you website and think the design and content are just fine.
Still, be sure to check your competitor’s website, other related websites and websites that win awards.
Use Google analytics to see how your website is performing. Keeping up to date can be the difference in keeping your website relevant.
