7 Signs That It’s Time to Refresh Your Website

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For some hard-working entrepreneurs, juggling with too many things every day can lead to losing focus on certain areas of the business, like a minor website design update.

Your website represents your business and if you want to make sure that it is making an impact on potential clients, your website has to be fresh, fast, and sleek. The last thing you want is to leave your website design to stagnate because this will affect your business. 

A website design refresh is far from a complete overhaul. You don’t have to make drastic changes to the design, just minor tweaks here and there to make your website look fresh and modern. But how do you know when it’s time to refresh your website design? Here are the tell-tale signs: 

It’s been years since your last design update

When was the last time you updated your website design? Five years ago? Seven years ago? Can’t remember at all? While there’s no hard and fast rule as to how old your website has to be before getting a redesign, don’t wait until it’s been 5 to 7 years before updating it. 

Generally, you should update your website design every two to three years. Remember, website design counts in your rankings on major search engines. Google prioritizes websites with new, modern designs. And Google’s algorithm keeps changing every year so you should always be ready for whatever changes the search engine makes to maintain your rankings. 

Also, no one wants to visit a website that’s slow and outdated. If you want to appeal to potential clients and maintain current ones, keep an eye out for the website design. 

The website looks off on a small screen

Does your website looks good on a desktop or laptop screen then somehow appear wonky on a small screen like a mobile phone or tablet? If the design looks off on a mobile phone or the website becomes completely unresponsive when viewed on a small screen, you need to redesign your website. 

Over 90% of the population uses mobile devices to go online. If your website doesn't look good on your customers' most preferred devices, you will lose a lot of views! If you’re selling a product or service online, you could be losing thousands of pounds in potential sales because your website is not mobile-friendly. 

Thankfully, most site builders offer mobile-friendly websites so a redesign doesn’t have to be too extensive. But for a fully customized website, you might have to get a professional to do this for you. 

The loading speed is slow

If your website takes forever and a day to load, it’s time to refresh the design. Remember, you only have 2 to 3 seconds to catch a viewer’s attention. If your website takes too long to load, you will lose a lot of views simply because online users are very impatient. From a viewer’s standpoint, it’s frustrating when a site takes 4 to 10 seconds to load and most will look elsewhere to find what they are looking for if they can’t find it on your website fast enough. 

Most abandoned carts are caused by slow loading speeds so this is something that you have to work on right away. You can simply update your website’s plugins, remove graphic-heavy visuals, and resize your images to start. If the loading speed remains too slow, have your website audited. There are many free services online. These audits will outline issues that cause the slow loading. 

Your online leads are disappointing

Getting people to visit your website is one thing, it’s another to get them to sign up for whatever service you have to offer. If you are unable to convert your website traffic into sales, you are not making the most out of your online presence. 

Look at your website and your business processes, find out why leads are not calling to book a meeting with you. Are your copies articulating who you are and what your business is all about? Does it state clearly who you do your business for?

Are you ending every copy with clear calls to action? Are you capturing your user information efficiently enough? Are you using an online scheduler link so people can take the next step easily? 

It’s important to sit down and look at things from a customer’s perspective. This way, you’ll know exactly what process works for them. If the website design is making things harder for customers to get what they want, it’s a sign to redesign it for a better user experience. With so many companies offering their services, many businesses choose to employ a digital marketing company to redesign their website for them.

Problematic navigation

A website that’s a pain to use tends to attract fewer people. When you’re looking for specific information online, you don’t want to jump through hoops to get it. If it takes a good few minutes to find what you are searching for on your website because it’s buried in multiple subpages, that’s a telling sign that it needs a redesign.

Your website should be easy to interact with, it should present information as quickly and efficiently as possible. It should only have five main pages: 

• Homepage
• About Us
• FAQs
• Contact Us
• Client center

Never bury your content, all the essential information about your business should be presented on the homepage and subsequent pages. It should be easy to scroll and scan. It should have ample white spaces so the text content is easy to read. 

Your branding has changed

If something has changed in your branding, you need to update your site as soon as possible. If you don’t, the branding won’t be consistent and it will only confuse your target audience. The same thing goes for your messaging or niche, if something has changed with any of these, the changes must be reflected on your website. That could be anything from the new color scheme or logo, pictures, or text content. 

Your online presence is weak

Wondering why people can’t seem to find your website on the searches? That’s a sign that your SEO is weak and you need to do something about this, STAT!

There's no denying that good web design is essential if you want your target audience to have a pleasant and accessible experience for the right reasons.

All too often, website owners forget about important concepts like user-friendly navigation, relevant content, and, of course, a responsive design that automatically adjusts to mobile devices with small screens.

However, website design goes hand in hand with SEO (search engine optimization). If you've done little to no SEO work for your website, you'll likely have discovered that your online presence is weak.

SEO is not something that you can set and forget – you need to update your content and website design regularly to maintain your search rankings. 

If you’ve been neglecting your SEO and website design, you’re bound to see a huge drop in website traffic. This shows that your website is no longer as visible as it once was online. And if people cannot see your website on the searches, they will do business with those whose websites are topping the searches! You could lose a lot of clients this way. 

Redesigning your website improves your online visibility. And while you’re updating your website design, do the same thing for your visuals and text content too. Insert your primary keywords in the image descriptions and web pages. Optimize your website content and integrate your social media profiles into your website for better visibility online. 

Don’t wait until you’re starting to see a drop in website traffic before giving your website design a refresh. With these tips, you can maintain your online visibility and attract more viewers to your website. The best part? You can convert website traffic into sales! We hope that you found this guide helpful!

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