How do you know when it’s time to hire someone to redesign your website? Luckily, you don’t have to wait until a client mentions that your website is out of date or, even worse, you start getting emails asking you how to get basic functions on your website to work!
Even if your website was successful in the past, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s designed to effectively evolve in an ever-changing business world. Your website is often the first place potential customers come across your business, and it should serve to demonstrate the very best that you and your business have to offer.
In this blog post, you will learn the 10 signs that it’s time to invest in professional website design and maintenance. Not only will an expert redesign save you time and money in the long-term, but it will also help you to establish a reputable presence on the internet as an authority in your field.
The Early 2000s Called, They Want Their Website Back
Have you ever visited a website and immediately wondered when the last time anyone updated it was? If your website is visually stuck in the last decade (or two!), people take notice. When your website doesn’t look current or accurately reflect modern times, it’s hard for customers to trust that your business will be able to take care of their present-day needs.
Making sure that your brand is on point, that the style of your website is consistent and aesthetically appealing throughout, and that text blocks are strategically broken up with attractive imagery and deliberate use of white space are all key elements to creating a visually appealing and contemporary website.
Your Website is Unnavigable by Phone
It doesn’t matter if your website looks beautiful and runs smoothly via desktop, if people can’t access your website on their phones you’re going to lose business. Today, it’s more important than ever before to ensure that potential customers have a smooth and seamless mobile experience with your website.
1 out of 4 internet users in the United States use their smartphones or other mobile devices to go online, which means that if you’re website isn’t fully optimized to work with both computers and mobile devices, you’re missing out.
You Can’t Find Yourself in a Google Search
When conducting Google research, rarely does anyone click past the first page of search results. That’s why it’s so important to make sure that your website is optimized to have highly visible content that improves your search engine rankings.
Strategically placing keywords in your website’s content and titles and linking to trustworthy external sources are two excellent methods that can help search engines to find and categorize your website.
Your Website Doesn’t Accurately Reflect Your Brand
If you are trying to be everything to everyone, your content will seem scattered and confusing to your audience, and you won’t be able to attract your ideal client because you won’t be able to competently advertise to them.
Niching down and getting clear on your brand is an essential part of building an effective website. How can you expect to appeal to the right clientele if you don’t know who you want to serve or how you can help them?
In the end, your website is one of your fundamental marketing tools, and should be treated with the level of attention and intentionality that your business deserves.
People Aren’t Buying What You’re Selling
If you’ve put all the work in and have a quality product or service but when it comes to website-based queries and sales you’re hearing crickets, you might have a website problem.
Low lead conversion rates are a sign that you’re not catering to the customer. It can help to have a second pair of eyes take a look at your website and let you know whether your website is designed to appeal to and serve your specific customer base, or if it seems like it’s primary motivation is to brag about how great your business is and to function as a commercial for your products or services.
A high bounce rate doesn’t necessarily mean that customers aren’t interested in what you’re offering, but it could definitely be a sign that they aren’t interested in how you’re offering it. Think about your content from your customers’ perspective, and brainstorm ways that you can make it more about them and less about you.
People Don’t Understand How to Use Your Website
Functionality should be one of the primary goals of your website. That means making sure that your website is simple and fun to use, and that users can easily search for and discover various pages and posts.
Making sure your contact info is easily accessible and adding social media share buttons as well as a convenient call-to-action button on all pages are great ways to help customers to spread the word about your business and to find out more about your offers.
Your Competitors Are Schooling You
If your website still consists of a measly “About Us” page and a “Contact For More Info” button, it might be time to check out the competition. Conducting market research on what others in your field are doing and how they are maintaining their websites can give you a solid idea about ways in which you can better serve your audience.
Adding new functions such as a blog, eCommerce platform, or image gallery are all elements of a website redesign that can help you to attract and assist your ideal clientele.
You’re Not Using Social Media
In this day and age, if you’re not using social media, you’re ignoring a mammoth of a marketing tool. Linking to your social media accounts and including buttons so that users can share your content on their own social media platforms are two crucial steps in upping your social media marketing game.
Your Website Keeps Buffering…And Buffering…And Buffering
Does your website take forever to load? Slow load times are a sure sign that it’s time to update your website. You may need to delete unnecessary plugins or update third-party widgets and tools. If your website is taking longer than 5 seconds to load, that means it’s lagging and it needs a redesign. Not only do faster load times enhance the customer experience, but they also improve your search engine rankings!
Your Website Doesn’t Excite You
Your website might technically have all of the appropriate contact info, external links, pages, functionality, share buttons, blogs, and user-friendly tools, but all of that doesn’t matter if the content is boring.
If you catch yourself yawning when reading over or editing your website, then it might be time to mix things up a little bit. Consider hiring a content specialist, copywriter, or digital marketing agency to help you spice up your website and bring the excitement back into your life! Your customers will feel the difference.
Designing and maintaining a website that is visually appealing, easy to use, and generates excitement amongst your customer base while building the credibility of your business doesn’t have to be complicated. Give Don Creative Group a call today to learn about how we can help you to take your website to the next level!
