5 Reasons Why It’s Time to Redesign Your Website
Is it time to redesign your website? Everyone that owns a website is eventually confronted with this question. In fact, if you have a website long enough, you’ll end up asking yourself this question more than once. Times change and so should your website. The tough question is when? Redesigning a website isn’t the easiest process. There’s a lot involved in order to successfully redesign a site. Not only is the design changing, but functionality may also be modified or added. If you’re jumping platforms (for example going from WordPress to Shopify) as a part of the redesign, that further complicates the process. This is why people generally holdout on a redesign as long as possible. Be warned though, hold off too long and you may experience a significant decline in traffic.
We’ve put together 5 reasons why you might want to consider that redesign sooner than later:
Reason #1 Your Site Looks Outdated
How do you know if your site looks outdated? An easy guide – was your site designed 5 years ago, or more? If so, it’s time to at least think about a redesign. A few key points
that can help in the decision making process:
- If your site is using “old-fashioned” fonts like Garamond Pro or Vista Sans, it may be time to upgrade.
- Maybe your website contains many banner placements that are inconsistent in their use of fonts/colors, think late 1990’s red on yellow or raised chrome fonts.
- The default text size is smaller than 10pts.
- Your images look like they were taken from clip art! Clothing and Hairstyles change and so should your images.
Reason #2 Your Website is Not Mobile Friendly
It’s 2020. If your website can’t be viewed properly on a phone or tablet – you are way overdo for a redesign. In 2014 mobile devices officially overtook desktops as the primary means of viewing a website. If your site isn’t responsive and can’t easily be viewed on a phone, you’re losing out. Even more important, Google has made it abundantly clear that mobile-friendliness is now one of the key factors used in obtaining good search ranking. Google’s site testing tool is a good place to start.
Reason #3 A High Bounce Rate
A “bounce” is the percentage of your site visitors that enter and then leave rather than viewing other pages. Unsure what your website bounce rate is? Installing Google Analytics is a top priority! Knowing what your website traffic looks like is a key factor in helping to make the decision if it is time for a redesign. An important metric is your bounce rate. If your website is getting anything over a 70% bounce rate, it’s time to seriously consider changing things up. Most websites range somewhere between a 40-60% bounce rate. If you’re under 40% – keep doing what you’re doing. A redesign might hurt instead of help.
Reason #4 SEO… or Lack There Of
SEO isn’t only about using proper keywords, ALT tags on images and fresh content. Proper SEO also directly relates to the overall design of your website. A few questions to help determine if your website design is hindering your SEO:
- Does your website clearly and quickly answer users questions of WHY they are visiting your page?
- Do you have too many pop-ups making the UX less than desirable?
- Is the text on your page illegible?
- Are you using Splash pages? If so, time to get away from that outdated design style.
- Does your website look like the Vegas strip? Is Flash dominating the homepage? You’ll want to clean things up.
- Is the site too image intensive, to the point of limiting content dispersal? Content is king. Steer away from an overly image dependent website.
There’s a lot more to proper SEO beyond these basic questions. However, if you find yourself answering yes to most of these, a redesign is needed.
Reason #5 Your Website Does Not Reflect Your Brand
It’s important that your website matches your brand. Often, as a brand develops over time the same can’t be said for the company website. Does your logo, marketing collateral, blog and site images properly reflect your brand? Is your site contemporary? Is it modern looking with lot’s a white space, clean lines and a well thought out navigational structure? Does your site copy reflect your brand ideals? If not, it’s time to consider a redesign. Not only will a new look better align your brand strategy with your online presence, but deciding to redesign, will force you to reexamine your site content. Generally this means fresh site content will replace what you’ve been using for years and this will translate to an improvement in rankings.
If you find yourself looking for a site redesign, C Dev Web Design can assist you. We offer site redesigns for a number of platforms, from WordPress to Shopify. You can reach us M-F at 800-508-9896 or online here. We’ll be happy to provide you with a free consultation.