Once you have a website set up for your business, it doesn’t mean you get to sit back and relax. Now, it’s time to get to work!
Aside from putting in the hours marketing your website through various digital marketing channels, you have to constantly look for ways to improve its performance.
In business, functionality goes hand-in-hand with aesthetics to entice customers to engage with you. Customers want to be happy with their choices. And if they decide to click on your URL, they expect to have a wonderful experience navigating your website.
If business has dried up and performance hasn’t been up to what it once was, don’t throw in the towel. Conduct an audit of your business. You might be surprised to find out that all you need is to redesign your website.
Let’s get you started with your business audit by sharing with you 8 signs that show you should change your web design:
1. Website Is Not Generating Enough Traffic
Your website has been online for years but there hasn’t been a significant increase in traffic. Worse, any uptick in numbers isn’t sustainable to show a clear trend that the Internet is bullish about your website.
There are a multitude of reasons why your website is not drawing enough visitors:
- The website isn’t optimized for search.
- Website content isn’t compelling, engaging, or relevant to readers.
- The website has broken links.
- The website uses stock images.
- The website has lost its backlinks.
Whatever the reasons are for not generating enough website traffic, you have to address them right away.
Website traffic creates opportunities and opportunities abound every day on the Internet. If your website isn’t driving inbound traffic, you could be losing a lot of money in terms of opportunity cost.
2. Web Design Is Not Delivering Results
If your website isn’t generating leads or converting interest into sales, then it might be time to consider a website redesign.
Think of your non-performing website as a store inside a mall (the Internet) that everyone ignores. Mall-goers see your store but aren’t enticed in going inside. Or if they do enter, they leave right away because:
- They can’t find what they’re looking for.
- Your offerings aren’t interesting.
- They’re lost or confused and there’s no one to help them.
A review of your current website design might reveal the following:
- The Brand Value Proposition (BVP) doesn’t resonate with the visitor.
- Your Calls-to-Actions are hard to find.
- There’s no chat plug-in to provide assistance.
These are just a few factors that could increase your site’s bounce rate. A visitor will click on your URL and click out just as fast.
Keep in mind that website visitors have little patience. If they don’t see anything they like on your website, they’ll leave.
A redesign can help change the perception of your website and make it resonate more with your audience.
3. Not Mobile Responsive
Google first made its threat to penalize non-mobile responsive websites in the search rankings in 2014. And by all accounts, the search engine giant has made good on its threat.
We’re already in the third decade of the new millennium. If your website still isn’t mobile-responsive, you better get in with the program and have it redesigned to be friendly to mobile devices.
Just ask yourself. What would you think about a website you clicked on from your mobile phone that doesn’t set up properly on your screen or that you’d have to zoom in to read its contents?
Precisely – you would probably click out and visit the website’s competitor.
That’s what your website visitor would do.
4. Web Design Is Not User-Friendly
We mentioned this briefly in #2. If a visitor feels lost and confused in your website and can’t get any support, he’ll just click out.
Trust us when we say, visitors will always be on the lookout for the menu bar. Whether it’s a drop-down menu or a three-bar icon, they want to make sure they know where it is so they can navigate freely on your website.
Likewise, your buttons might not be working properly.
They can’t share your content and they can’t sign up for a monthly newsletter or for a free e-book.
If you have an e-commerce site, maybe the “Cash on Delivery” option isn’t available or the visitor can’t input data in some of the site’s fields.
These are all examples of situations that make a website not user-friendly. Unless you have these issues fixed, your website will not ring the cash register.
5. You Have a Slow Loading Website
A popular saying in sports is “Speed kills” meaning a faster athlete is better than a slower athlete.
We can tweak the saying to suit website design as “Lack of speed kills” without straying far off from its meaning. If your website doesn’t load in 3 seconds or less, 53% of your visitors will leave your page and go to your competitor.
There are a number of factors that could be affecting your page loading speed such as:
- The image files might be too big.
- Some of the marketing tools you included in your website might have added their own code.
- You may have embedded a video on your website.
- Your website has too many plugins and widgets – some of which are largely unused or outdated.
Having a fast-loading website is essential to achieving your business goals. Today’s mobile-dependent consumer isn’t that patient. The sooner he can access your website, the better for your business.
6. Website’s Design Is Outdated
Brands often undertake renovations or a redesign in order to give customers something new and fresh to look forward to. The products and services remain the same but having a new look can greatly enhance the overall customer experience.
Your website is the same way. It represents your brand. Customers might have nothing bad to say about your products and services but they could just be bored with seeing the same things when they visit your website.
Meanwhile, your competitors have upgraded their design. Not only is their website more current in terms of aesthetics but it’s more functional and navigable.
There’s no arguing that films such as “Jaws”, “Gone With The Wind”, and “Citizen Kane” are considered classics because they have stood the test of time, the same cannot be said for website design.
Outdated design isn’t classic. It’s simply outlived its use and fallen behind the times.
7. Website Isn’t Generating Engagement
A website that isn’t generating engagement is like the wallflower at a party. No one finds you interesting enough to engage with.
Engagement is activity and activity makes your website dynamic. In contrast, a passive website is static. There’s no movement or activity. Similar to the wallflower in our previous example, your website needs a makeover.
Maybe your website uses stock images that your audience has seen in other websites. Stock images are beautiful but show a lack of creativity and effort. Likewise, they’re not unique which is important for Google to give your website a boost.
Is your homepage inundated with text? Not many site visitors are impressed with a text-heavy homepage. A better option would be to have an explainer video that promotes your value proposition in under 1 minute.
Perhaps your Calls-to-Actions are vague. A Call-to-Action (CTA) is a command that you want your visitors to follow. As a command, it has to be definitive and direct to the point.
For example, if you want your visitor to buy, “Buy Now” is a better CTA than “Click to Find Out”.
8. Current Web Design Can’t Measure Performance
We’ve had businesses come to us for a redesign because their current website doesn’t provide them with enough data to track and measure performance.
Many websites have built-in analytics but in most cases, they don’t give out key information such as breakdown of demographics, location of site visitors, type of devices used to access your website, and the number of unique visitors per day.
You’ll need as much data as possible to figure out the best ways to improve your website’s performance. Data allows you to streamline and customize your digital marketing campaigns according to the demands of your audience.
Conclusion
So, does your website need a redesign?
You don’t need to have all 8 symptoms to confirm that you should change your web design. All you have to do is to look at your numbers.
If the business isn’t doing well, if you’re falling short of your targets, and the marketing campaign isn’t delivering the intended results, AND you have at least ONE of these signs… have your website redesigned.
Give us a call and we’ll put your website back on the Internet and climbing up the search rankings!
And if you enjoyed this article and know someone who might need a web redesign, feel free to share it with that person.
