Websites and brick & mortar stores must be renovated after a certain period of time, and for the same reason. Search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. are putting a lot of efforts to make the Internet browsing user-friendly. For that, they are frequently updating their algorithms. As a result, as the days are passing, the standards of a website are increasing.
If you created your website long back, then you should consider redesigning it. That’s because the parameters have changed. Now, we have many new ranking factors such as speed, mobile friendliness, security, and many other things. Here are the top reasons to redesign your website.
1. Your website is not fulfilling your needs
A website is the most important part of your business. It is created to fulfill certain needs and expectations of business owners. Below are the things that a website can help you achieve.
More sales
Bigger customer base
Higher visibility
Good online reputation
Great brand awareness
These are some of the common goals that business owners try to achieve through a website. As a business owner, you might have certain unique goals too. Check whether your website is able to fulfill all your business goals. If you are not able to meet your expectations, you might require a website redesign.
How do I know whether my website is serving its purpose? Well, it is pretty easy. You should keep an eye on certain parameters such as subscriptions, sales, visitors, conversion rate, bounce rate, etc.
Note that the absence of an SEO campaign also contributes to the reduction of website traffic. SEO is a continuous process. So never stop your ongoing search engine optimization campaign.
2. It is slow
In both SEO and web design, user experience plays a vital role. Therefore, speed has become the most basic quality of a website. If your site takes more than three seconds to load, it is tagged as a slow website. There can be many causes, for instance, poor website development, and slow hosting service.
In the last couple of years, things have drastically changed. Today, Internet users have a short attention span and expect a website to load fast. If your website takes anything more than three seconds, they tend to hit the back button or close the window. As a result, your bounce rate increases and negatively impacts your SEO.
So get your website redesigned, if it is slow. If you find it difficult to guess the website speed you can use free online tools available on the internet, and determine the speed.
3. It does not reflect your brand properly
A business does not remain at it was in the beginning. With time it tends to evolve. As a result, core principles, customer base, keywords, and business goals tend to change. Your website should be synchronized with all these things. In order to make sure your website matches with the various aspects of your business.
Why is it important for your website to reflect your brand properly? An internet user comes to your website as a visitor. The content on the website and the user experience play a major role in converting them. In addition to that, online reputation management experts also suggest reflecting your brand accurately.
4. The absence of Call To Action buttons
You have created a website so that your visitors can take certain actions on it. The action can be Subscribe, Call, Message, Get direction, Know more, Talk to the experts, Make an inquiry, Buy, Book an appointment, etc. Without Call To Action buttons your website is like a computer without a keyboard.
Just placing the call to action button is not going to solve the issue. They need to be placed in the right places. For example, it is not a good idea to place “buy now” in the above the fold region. That’s because users do not come to your website and buy your products and services directly. They go to various web pages and judge both your business and online presence. Web design experts usually suggest keeping the call to action button in the places where the visitor is ready to take the action, for example in the bottom.
5. It is not responsive
What is a responsive website? A responsive website is a website that detects the visitor’s screen size and orientation and changes the layout accordingly. In short, if you visit a responsive website you will not have to zoom in and zoom out to read the content on the website.
If your website is not responsive, it is not user-friendly. It is as simple as that. Moreover, responsiveness is a search engine ranking factor. Without it, you can’t rank your website on Google’s first page. Visit your website using different devices such as desktop, mobile, tablet, laptop, etc. Check how the website is displayed in these devices. If your website is not adjusting itself according to the screen size, it is time to redesign your website and make it device friendly.
6. It is not capable to build trust
Trust is the top most important factor for any business. Even when if you have a phenomenal website and the topmost search engine ranking, people will not buy your products and services if they don’t trust you. That is the reason why the importance of online reputation management is increasing year by year.
How can I establish trust through web design? Well, it is quite simple, all you need to do is display social proofs. For example customer testimonials, consumer reviews, case studies, and statistics. These are the things that make your potential customers believe in you. Make sure you do not fake it. Faking is not going to help. Eventually, people will come to know the truth.
7. High bounce rate
Bounce rate, a term used in website analysis, is nothing but the percentage of visitors who enter your website and exit rather than continue to view other web pages of the same website. So, a high bounce rate indicates that the majority of the people who are coming to your website are leaving without taking any action.
There are many reasons that increase the bounce rate. Here we are mentioning some.
Poor quality content
The mismatch between expectation and reality
Slow website
Too many ads
Complicated navigation
You can check the bounce rate of your website with the help of Google Analytics. If you find it high, consider redesigning your website.
8. It is not SEO optimized
A website without SEO is the same as a watch without a cell. The whole SEO can be divided into two parts, those are On-page optimization and Off-optimization. On-page optimization is something that overlaps with web design.
If your website is not SEO optimized, it is not going to rank well in search engine results pages. A good web design produces SEO ready websites. If your website is not SEO ready, you should redesign it and start an SEO campaign as soon as possible.
9. It is outdated
Just like your business, your website also needs to be updated. Web design trends usually change after a couple of years. Your competitors are updating their website to win the competition. If your website is outdated, visitors tend to think they are on a website that is not currently active. Many business owners tend to commit this mistake. A website created cannot be used forever without making changes in it. If you have not updated your website since the day it was built, you need to contact a web design company today.
10. It lacks proper website security
You cannot rank your website on the search engine results page without proper website security. SEO should not be the only reason to concentrate on website security. Cybercrime has become the top concern of internet users. No one whats to interact with a website which is not secure.
If your website is built years ago and hasn’t been updated since it is at great risk. Old and outdated websites are easy to hack. Once your website is hacked, you will lose your online reputation and credibility, without which your business cannot survive.
11. It does not go well with your marketing strategy
Is your business the same as it was in the initial years? It must have gone through some significant changes, right? When your business goes through the changes, marketing strategies no longer remain the same. They are evolved to suit the nature of the business. Similarly, your website should go hand in hand with your marketing strategy. An outdated website does not suit the current marketing strategy.
12. It doesn’t convert
As a business owner, what is your ultimate goal? You want more sales, isn’t it? Well, to have more sales you have to convert your visitors into customers. And an updated website is capable of doing this job. Various aspects of a website such as content, social proofs, navigation, user experience, speed, and readability help you to make more sales.
If your website is not converting, you must go for website redesigning. It is as simple as that. Rebuild your website taking all these factors into account. If you do not have the required knowledge and experience, it is always best to take the professional help of a web design company.