When is it time for a website redesign? 5 signs for it
Is it time for you to redesign your website?
Let’s find out.
Your website is more than just a way to outline the services your business provides. It’s a 24/7 storefront that will communicate your brand to your key audiences on an ongoing basis. Whether your visitor is a new prospect, a consumer considering a first purchase, or another important stakeholder, the fact that your website is ‘always on’ means it always needs to be effective. That’s why it’s important to regularly review your site to ensure it’s positioning your company in the most potent way possible.
Websites have front and back end elements that influence their performance. It’s important to consider both when you’re thinking about the possibility of a redesign.
The front end is all the copy, design and other content which creates a compelling user journey that converts users into customers and prospects into clients.
The back end is the technical architecture of your website. It helps you do things like update and manage content and improve search engine optimization.
In this article, we explore potential issues with both the front and back end components of your site to help you determine whether you need a full overhaul. Here are eight signs you might need to redesign your website.
1. Your website isn’t working towards your business goals.
What do you need your website to accomplish?
A website’s purpose could range from direct sales to providing an educational hub for users to learn about your brand, to many other purposes. You should always define and prioritize your business goals before functionality and aesthetics come into play. A business geared towards direct customer sales of a commoditized product will need a different web design than a non-profit looking to improve member engagement.
If your website isn’t designed to serve your business goals, you will ultimately be disappointed in the return you get on your investment. At Tiller, all of our creative work is informed by your business goals. We want to know what you’re trying to accomplish as a business, how you’re going to measure it, and how our team can build a site that delivers to those goals.
If your site isn’t driving enough (or any) revenue, if it’s not ranking on Google, or if the content isn’t reflecting your current offerings or value propositions, your website is likely out of step with your business goals and probably needs a website redesign.
2. You have high bounce rates and low conversions.
If your website has high bounce rates and low conversions, you have a problem.
Let’s start with the obvious question though.
What are bounce and conversion rates and why do they matter?
Websites are designed to be immersive and engaging for your users, and there are some metrics we use to determine if your site is delivering the experience you intended. A bounce is when a user leaves your website after visiting only one page, which means they likely haven’t explored the content or products offerings you have in any depth. The user came in, they checked you out and they’re gone. Possibly forever.
A conversion is when users take a desired action on your site. It’s what you’d hope to get instead of a bounce. For a SaaS website, a conversion would likely be indicated by a user submitting a form to request a demo. Conversions can take other forms too. They could be signified by someone signing up for a newsletter or sharing your page on social media. A low conversion rate means that your website isn’t engaging your users effectively and getting them to take the desired actions.
Heatmapping is an invaluable way to understand user engagement on your website. Heatmaps show you how much time users spend on your website – and where their time is spent. Instead of just assuming what is wrong, a heatmap can show you in very targeted ways where your audience is losing interest in your site. It is immediate, visual feedback on the efficiency of your calls-to-action, images, text, and overall experience.
A user that spends longer on your website and is more engaged in the experience is more likely to become a customer.
3. Your website is slow.
As a user, nothing is more frustrating than a website that doesn’t load quickly. Users usually won’t wait around in hopes that a website’s experience, design or content will make up for its slow speed. In fact, Google research shows that approximately 53% of users leave a website that takes longer than three seconds to load.
A slow load time could be the result of a poorly developed (built) website or an increase in traffic that has overstressed or overloaded the infrastructure in the back end of the site.
If your website isn’t as fast as it needs to be, you’re undercutting the work you did from a strategic and creative perspective. You’ve likely put in lots of time and effort in those areas only to end up with sub-optimal results because the pages load slowly.
A slow load speed will also negatively affect your search engine rankings. Search engine optimization is important because high rankings help clients find your company online, drive organic traffic, and help establish you as a leader in your field.
4. Your site isn’t responsive or easy to use on mobile.
According to 2021 research, mobile devices make up 54.4% of global website traffic. It’s critical that you prioritize the mobile experience as much as (if not more than) desktop. This doesn’t have to be a difficult or cumbersome experience or even a separate design. In fact, creating strictly mobile website designs are a thing of the past.
This is where the concept of responsive web design comes in.
Instead of developing two distinct websites for desktop and mobile users, responsive web design allows for a website that scales its design and contents for the device it’s loaded on.
From the user perspective, it’s seamless. Responsive web design enables them to get a great experience regardless of the device they use.
From the development end of things, responsive design reduces the need for a different design for each type of device. Although sometimes at Tiller we’ll do some targeted mobile-only designs to enhance the overall user experience.
Responsive design also offers additional benefits for your site and your business.
It helps future-proof your website against a flood of endless new devices or screen sizes. This saves time and budget in the long run. It makes it much easier to manage content. You update the content once and it scales based on whatever device is being used. And from a search perspective, Google demands it. If your site isn’t mobile-friendly it will be penalized in the rankings.
If your website isn’t responsive, it is absolutely time for a redesign.
5. Your site’s design is outdated.
As functional as a website might be, the visuals really matter. Users associate the visual appearance of a company website with the quality of its products and services.
That’s why you don’t want your website to include nothing but text, a few hyperlinks, and some poorly scaled images. A user’s first impression of your site will be visual, and you should take the time to make sure that impression is great.
When designing a website, you should work with a web development and design agency or creative partners that will bring your brand to life in the most visually appealing and effective way possible. Focusing on aesthetics makes that first impression as striking as it can be. If you think of your website as a store, an outdated website is like a store with a shabby exterior, dust in the corners, and peeling paint. Maybe you’ll try shopping somewhere else.
You should also consider how modern and sleek your competitors’ websites are when compared against yours. This is something that we always take into account when we work with clients. What is the competitive landscape from a visual perspective?
The truth is that the bar keeps getting higher and higher for web design. And a user will always gravitate towards an elegant and professional website over an archaic relic of the early internet.