How often should you redesign your website?
As a general rule of thumb, you should redesign your website once every two to three years. This is simply because if your website is three years old — a lifetime, in the digital world — odds are it's outdated. However, this isn’t a hard and fast rule — some sites may not need a full redesign and some may need to be refreshed more frequently than others as business goals or market conditions change.
If you have a website but are worried that it is starting to look out of date, or perhaps no longer suits your business or organisation needs, then now may be the time update it.
Below you will find 8 reasons why it could be the right time for you to consider a new website and will also help bring some clarity on the best way forward. If you would like to discuss your website with us directly, please do not hesitate to get in touch and we will be very happy to help.
8 Reasons Why You May Need a New Website
1. It just doesn't look very good
One of the most important things to consider; are you happy with how your website looks? Do you feel like it represents your business as it should? If the answer to either of these questions is no, then a new website might be a good idea.
The importance of great design, a clean appealing layout and the use of professional images/videos to the overall viewing experience is huge. A prospects first impression is key when visiting a website for the first time, otherwise they will leave.
2. Your website is not mobile friendly (responsive)
Have you or your customers viewed your website on their mobile phone and had to pinch the screen to view the content? Or have you found that some content is unreadable or displays poorly on a smartphone?
If so, it sounds like your website is not responsive/mobile friendly, which is a major problem. With more than 60% of all users viewing websites on their smartphone, your website needs to be device responsive.
Having a responsive website ensures that no matter what device it is viewed on, the user experience is the same on every screen size, whether it's a smartphone, laptop or tablet.
3. Making website content changes are almost impossible
Most modern websites have an integrated content management system (CMS) that allows you to make changes to your website content easily. Many older websites will have an outdated CMS that is impossible to use without a computer science degree or, it doesn't have one at all! Does this sound familiar? — you need to contact and often pay your website provider to make the changes for you.
At Website Sorted, all of our websites utilise an industry leading content management system and we provide complimentary training for all our customers, so they can make simple and even complex changes to any area of their website with ease.
4. Loading web pages seems to take forever
Recent research outlines the importance of your websites load speed. People expect a site to load in less than 2 seconds and many users will leave if it takes over 3 seconds. If your website is loading slowly, the solution is simple, your site needs to be optimised for load speed.
Optimising site load speed is one of the most important considerations at Website Sorted. Why not compare your site with this site we built recently for Cynon Linc. If your site is to slow it will affect its ranking on Google and the amount of enquiries that you receive.
You can run a google speed test here and if your pagespeed results are slow, contact us for some help.
5. My competitors websites are so much better!
You should regularly check your competitors websites. If you have recently viewed a competitors website that is making yours look obsolete or perhaps you have seen one that has superior functionality, then it is probably time to take a look at a website upgrade for yourself. Do you want to stay ahead of your competition?
6. You can't find your website on Google
If your website is outdated, unresponsive, poorly optimised or maybe has just not had any content updates in the last few years, it is likely that you are not ranking as well as you could be on the search engines — we all know how important Google rankings are.
Google are constantly updating their search algorithms (the process used to rank websites in search results) so it is important your website stays up to date.
Website Sorted offer a free SEO report so you can see how well your current site is optimised.
7. You don't promote your website to others
If you are embarrassed to share your website with others, it is probably the right time to get a new one. Your website is the face of your company online and is likely to be the first place people will visit to find out more about you, your services and get contact information.
You should be proud to shout about it and your website should be utilised as one of, if not the main marketing tool to promote your business. It definitely shouldn't be an embarrassment.
8. You don't have the support of a professional web design company
There may not be much wrong with your current website, you might just need an expert web partner to manage it for you, save you time and provide a more professional service.
Bringing in a web design company like Website Sorted doesn't necessarily mean that we need to redesign your site. We have taken over the management of many of our customers existing websites and made the necessary changes to improve Google ranking, responsiveness and site load speed.
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