We've done lots of website redesigns for our existing clients (thanks for that!) and we're often asked when a redesign should be done. Here are a few answers to that question along with what the benefits of a website redesign are.
75% of website visitors admit to making judgments about a company’s credibility based on that company's website design. (Stanford University)
In general, you should be able to get 3-5 years of use from your website but that also depends on a few things. The Website Design industry moves very fast. What happens is, the technology improves as the market demands it. Smart phones fueled responsive website design and faster loading websites. The new tech we see provides better ways to code websites, gives us improved programming libraries to use (JavaScript) and updated programming languages (like PHP 7) give better security while helping websites load faster.
When you website loads faster and works on more devices, you a providing a better user experience. Since Google wants to give the best results possible, they're going to give these kinds of websites higher rankings.
You must look at what your competition is doing in order to keep up and surpass them. Are they working hard on their website, adding content, adding features, making it load faster? If so, then you need to improve your website and sometimes that should include a complete redesign.
In order to rank above them, your website needs to be better than theirs. Google doesn't know if you give better service, have better people, been around longer or have a better product (besides any reviews you have). What they mainly see is your website. How your website is built has a lot to do with what Google thinks of your business.
If you have content on your website that isn't accurate or if Google sees pages on your website that get no traffic (since the topic is old), that brings down the quality score of your website. When that happens, it's time to re-think your content, purge some and develop better content. Doing that may involve a redesign to help make your content easier to read and digest.
Design trends change. Right now, flat design is in. Websites using a lot of gradients and overlapping images (showing depth) look out of date. When your audience puts your website next to your competition and you look old / not current, they may want to spend their money with a company that looks more in tune with what's going on / active.
Your website might also be not easy to use. With new kinds of navigation and ways of using a website, the design and technology behind your website might be making you look bad to your customers. It might be time to do a redesign and make your first impression 100 times better.
If your website loads too slowly, people will leave. Think about it - you've done it, right? People expect websites to load in less than 2 seconds.
Since there have been some very big breakthroughs in website speed in the last couple of years, you should do a website redesign to take advantage of this new technology. A fast loading website will get more eyeballs on your website.
40% of website visitors said they will abandon a website if it takes more than three seconds to load. (Econsultancy)
If you haven't done a redesign in a long time (that's 5+ years in our industry), then your website might not work well on mobile devices. Google is imposing a penalty with your rankings when this happens. You're simply not ranking well because your design is very old.
Since most websites now see more than half of their traffic coming from mobile devices, it's definitely time to do a website redesign. Do it and you'll see a bump in traffic and we can pretty much guarantee that. It's that important.
Do your website visitors get lost on your website? Do you even know if they do? There's a good chance they are getting lost and just leaving your website. This contributes to a high bounce rate, bringing your rankings down. If this is the case, then it's time to find out and maybe do a redesign of your website.
76% of people say the most important characteristic of a website is ease of use. (Hubspot)
We sometimes see websites that have started out clean but, over time, more things get added and it starts to look cluttered. What we hear from almost every business owner is that they want a website that looks clean and professional. Of course, doing that takes work and an expert eye (which is why we're in business) and we're here to help.
In this case, a website redesign can breathe new life into not just the website but also your company. Your employees, customers and prospects see a fresh, new design and they feel better about working with or for you.
Do You Need Marketing Help?With some clients, they just need help with their marketing message. Some of them think they have a message but they really don't. They don't know what to say to show their audience that they're different, why they're different, what the benefit is and why people should choose them.
Hint: If your tagline is "For all your (insert your industry here) needs!" then you absolutely do not have a marketing message that anyone is paying attention to. Your lazy marketing is preventing you from getting new business.
In this case, meeting with one of our copywriters is essential. They help you figure out what you should be saying to get more leads, more sales or more traffic. Most businesses have only an internal perspective of who they are and getting an outside view can really be eye-opening. Maybe you do something better than your competition but you don't talk about it. Sometimes you do something everyone else is doing but nobody's talking about that thing or service and you can be the one known for it just by focusing on it.
It's also possible you don't have enough "calls to action" on your website or you haven't tested different "calls to action." When you do this, you can actually get more leads from the traffic you already have. This is often the first step we do before we head into an SEO contract with a client.
Getting a focused marketing message that really works, combined with a new website design can really do wonders for your business.
We've done a number of redesigns lately where our client put a greater focus on employment because they need to hire more people. They can easily post open positions on their website and take applications online.
The added benefit that we've seen is that when you show how much you focus on quality employees, that helps your customers get more insight into how your business operates. If they see what qualifications you require and what benefits you provide, they may choose you over your competition.
Maybe you need QuickBooks integration or connectivity with your inventory system. Or maybe there are some tasks that be better handled by your website than with manual labor. If you have to copy and paste something from your website into another system every day, then it's definitely time to look at integration. We can help.
We've build these kinds of systems and they might even just cost $1000 or less. If investing that much to save 20 times sounds good to you, then let's talk about how you can make your website more of a tool for your business.
If it's finally time to explore adding e-commerce to your website, it's easier, now more than ever, to get your products and services online.
When you get a new website from Webstix, you get a lot of great things. Again, our industry moves very fast. The technology changes and gets better. When that happens, you get all those new advantages working for you.
You also get our improved knowledge and experience. With every new website we launch, we gain more experience and find better ways to do things. Methods and standards also change all the time (we keep up on them). You new website will get all this knowledge and expertise built in when it launches.
More benefits of a new website include:
