A website redesign can help your company take the next step into the digital business world. We are all currently living in the digital age, and ensuring that you maintain your position as a contemporary brand will help to aid your chances of survival and success as markets become more and more crowded with new competitors every day.
According to research, you should consider a website redesign every 2 years and 7 months and depending on your industry’s characteristics may be even shorter than that.
As the information and service offerings that are available to consumers are becoming ever more sophisticated, quick, and adaptable, your website needs to reflect this to ensure that your business doesn’t become an ancient relic and be left in the dust by the modern competition.
According to the CSO, more than 4 in 5 Irish businesses actually have a website whereas only 40% of them actually sell products or services online. The Covid-19 pandemic has changed the way that the global business environment operates and has somewhat sped up the process of digitalisation on an international scale.
So no matter if your website has an e-commerce offering or not, now is the time to start thinking about how a website redesign can fundamentally impact your business and its future.
With this in mind, here are our top signs that you need a website redesign:
1. Low Search Engine Ranking (SERP)
Did you know that 90% of consumers used the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) in search of services provided by local businesses over the past year? Ranking at the top of this page for the key services that are attributable to your business is essential to enticing the consumer to further interact with your business in the future.
68% of new traffic to your business is driven by search engine results which emphasizes the importance of having a clean up to date website that is easy for potential customers to use and interact with to encourage them to return in the future.
Some of the major causes of poor Search Engine Results include poor site speed, old/broken links, & dated content, so if any of these factors are affecting your business whether big or small, it may be time for a website redesign.
2. Not Optimised for Mobile
One of the most critical elements for any business nowadays is to ensure that your website is optimised for mobile use above all else. No matter where you look there is always somebody in your surroundings who are staring at their phone screen scrolling through the internet. In fact, over 46% of people use their mobile phones as their primary search tool when it comes to sourcing products or services.
Ensuring that your website is optimised for mobile increases the chances of a new consumer purchasing from your website by 67% which in itself alone proves the importance of mobile optimisation for the modern business.
The majority of older websites feel somewhat clunky and hard to use and are not optimised for mobile and this is a major signal that you need somewhat of a revamp to maintain a competitive position in today’s competitive business environment.
3. Poor Website Aesthetics
Have you ever heard the saying “never judge a book by its cover”? Well, the majority of consumers tend to judge websites by how they look and feel so it is a highly important step within the website design process to create a visually appealing site. Having a site that is nicely laid out with a complimentary design can make all the difference.
46% of consumers outline that the aesthetics of a website is the primary factor behind their purchasing decision, highlighting that a clean design tends to improve the credibility of the website.
Key aspects of your site’s aesthetics include typography, layout, fonts, & colour schemes, etc. so the combination of all these varying parts is what makes a site a pleasure to deal with. If any of these elements for your business feel somewhat outdated or out of place, it could be time to consider a redesign.
4. Poor Navigation
The navigation of your website decides its accessibility and usability. Creating a good navigation system will allow your customers to search on your website for longer with ease giving them confidence that your website is where they should conduct their business.
The speed of getting from one point to another is very important to the modern consumer so incorporating this aspect of consumer desire into your website through navigation will have a major impact on improving your customer’s satisfaction.
If your website has poor navigation, it is likely that this will increase your bounce rate which means consumers are likely to leave your website after visiting one page rather than continuing to explore the rest of the site. The average bounce rate for a company is approximately 45%, so if yours is higher than this, a website redesign is on the cards for your company.
5. Slow Loading Times
According to experts within the industry, the vast majority of consumers expect any website to load in 2 seconds or less and anything above this is highly likely to motivate the potential customer to leave the website and try somewhere else. Even a one-second difference has a major impact on the potential bounce rate.
No matter if your company is big or small, increasing load times have a major impact on the number of consumers who leave your site. Take the BBC for example, every second longer than average it takes for their pages to load an additional 10% of visitors exit the site.
70% of consumers admit the speed at which they can carry out an interaction has a major influence on what online services they choose. The majority of older websites tend to have excessive elements embedded in their website which is affecting this load time and effectively screaming out for a website redesign.
6. Competitors
Realistically all businesses tend to keep somewhat of an eye on what their competitors are doing to gain the upper hand and competitive advantage in all aspects of their dealings. This is the same for websites and you should be keeping up with all the latest updates your competitors are implementing.
Testing out certain elements of your competition’s web design such as load times, navigability, ease of use, design, and so on will help you determine where your own website compares and what advantages you have in the market, and where you could potentially improve to close the metaphorical gap.
If you find that you are almost embarrassed to give out your company’s website details to potential new clients because you are worried about how it compares to your competitors, you can be sure that now is the time to go for that website redesign.
7. No CMS Present
It is imperative for all modern websites to have some sort of Content Management System in place to help manage, create, & optimise your customer’s digital experience with your business through the ability to edit, add, or delete online content.
There are 72 million websites around the world that use some sort of CMS to help manage their online profile and not having one present can affect your ability to satisfy your consumer’s requirements in an efficient manner whilst also leaving you in the dust in comparison to your industry competitors who are using one.
If you decide to implement a CMS for your business, it will help to improve your site’s user-friendliness, its ability to scale, and its overall security amongst other reasons, so if you are considering adding one of these systems in your next website redesign, why not check out our blog on which CMS to go for here.
Now that you have read our 7 signs you need a website redesign blog, why not see our other articles for more web development, graphic design, and digital marketing insights?
Do you need help with your Web Design strategy? Contact us today to get your project started.