The 21st century has brought with it an era of rapidly evolving new technologies, consumer expectations and a complete shift in the process of buying and selling services or products. It has also become evident that users are now browsing the internet more than ever before and this trend will only continue to see an upward transition.
In this era, your online website is your first impression, a starting point for a consumer to get to know you. Websites are arguably one of the most essential components of your business. Websites exhibit important information about your team, business guidelines and aims, and products. Besides, it also gives your prospective clients an understanding of how you portray your business to the world which ultimately results in them deciding to reach out to you or not.
If your business does not already show these essential elements, it is time for you to think of redesigning.
Signs you need to update your website
1. You're not using a Content management system (or it's useless)
Can your content marketing team easily access your website to make changes? If your content marketing team continuously have to contact your website developer whenever they want to make changes to your website it is likely that either your content management system is outdated or you may not have one at all. This means it is time to update your website.
Websites now are built using a content management system (CMS), this way your marketers or content writers can quickly and easily go and update content, add new pages or add details about promotions and news. A content management system for example such as Wordpress lets you easily access and make changes to your website without contacting the website developer. This makes the whole process a lot more time and money efficient.
2. You are not attracting the right clients
You do not just want to attract random visitors, but the right kind of visitors. If you are not getting prospects with the correct inquiries that match your product or service, you are doing something wrong and not correctly positioning yourself in the market.
Perhaps you lack the right content that accurately portrays the purpose of your business or service, and your website may require clarity.
This is a sign that you need to update your website. Put out fresh new content which is targeted to the right audience. You need to ensure that your material is unique and caters to your prospects’ basic queries and needs.
Continuous and brand new content on your site builds a connection and trust between you and your customer.
3. Your website's bounce rate is high
You are losing leads and prospects and in turn increasing your bounce rate, this is an indication that something is being done wrong. While it is acceptable to have an average bounce rate of 40%-60% depending on your industry, anything more than that percentage is something to worry about.
You can check your bounce rate, by checking Google Analytics. Log in and go to Acquisition > Overview tab. You may then come back and compare it to the statistics below to see where your website stands according to company standards.
4. You're using outdated themes and technologies
Web standards shift each year, introducing new tools and technologies to build a good website. If you created your website over two years ago, it is time to update it.
You would need to update it because it is likely that it has fallen way behind regarding functionality and looks. In addition, the code had probably become outdated too resulting in slowing down your loading speed or how it functions on new devices.
5. Your website's loading time is slow
Ideally, you should be aiming at your website loading in under 5 seconds. If it doesn’t do that, you are going to need to get that update. With an abundance of options, nobody wants to waste time waiting for a page to load. The average person has an attention span of 8 seconds if it’s taking your page longer than that to load you’ve already missed out on prospects and lost business.
To assess the speed of your website you can try tools such as YSlow, Google Page Speed Insights or Pingdom.
Below are stats on how page loading time affects your prospects.
6. Your website is not mobile friendly
In the age of technology and average users using their mobile phones at an approximate of 4 and a half hours a day, if your website is not mobile friendly you are in trouble.
Nobody wants to use a website where they need to enlarge the website pages manually, and then they end up hitting the wrong links. That would lead to frustration which would not only result in the loss of a customer but also bad reviews. Bad reviews have the power to drive a high volume of consumers away from your business, as word of mouth has a lot of power.
You need to have a responsive and adaptive design; perhaps you may already have this. However, it is still essential for you to keep up with the trends.
If you aren’t making changes while your competitors are, and staying ahead of the game, you are setting yourself up for failure.
Oh, wait! Do you know about Google's mobile-first indexing? Read here.
7. SEO
The first question you should ask yourself is, do you have a blog or not?
A blog is a powerful marketing tool to attract new visitors to your site. However, to make sure you are drawing the right visitors, you should aim to create content that is relevant, that speaks to them and answers queries they may have. Furthermore, make sure to use the appropriate keywords to drive more traffic your way.
This is important because search engines thrive on fresh content. Every time an update is made to your website, search engines crawl and index your pages which results in the ranking of your website getting recalculated. If you keep publishing fresh content and stay updated, the chances of you getting noticed are increased.
When it comes to SEO’s they are known as the natural, organic or earned results. Thus, people are generally more likely to access these results. A well-implemented on-page SEO strategy can generate traffic and drive faster conversions.
By analyzing these steps, you can determine whether you are on track or if you need to make changes. We suggest that you update your website rather than creating an entirely new one as it is would save you time money and energy. Just because your website is working doesn’t mean that it is at its fullest potential, don’t disregard a redesign because you can “make do” with what you have.