The proliferating use of smartphones and tablets is causing US consumers to spend a projected 345 million this year online according to Forrester Research. With 286 million US Internet users, having a beautiful, functional website is the single most important marketing tool that can drive sales. Your target market is looking for you online whether your website is great or not. If your website is not your best 24/7 salesperson, it might be time for a redesign. Here are some of the telltale signs that you should invest in a new website.
Doesn’t Work Well on Mobile Devices
Even though over 60% of users browse on mobile devices, only a measly 12% of small business websites are mobile-friendly. Last year, Google rolled out Mobilegeddon by ranking responsive websites higher than non-responsive ones in mobile search results. Responsive web design creates a great user experience necessary to persuade mobile users to buy from you.
Rotating Banners
Contrary to popular belief, rotating banners are highly ineffective. Usually, you are only interested in one of the few things presented by the homepage carousel, but once you are interested, the content is whisked away before you can take action. Even though homepage sliders are EVERYWHERE, less than 1% of them get clicked because of banner blindness. People have banner blindness because rotating banners look like advertisements so they are conditioned to ignore them. Furthermore, sliders consume prime homepage real estate and increase loading time so you need to get rid of it as soon as possible. We are redesigning our website for this exact reason. Some better alternatives include having a big, fat headline with a call-to-action supported by a full-page hero image or a video background.
Cluttered Layout or Small Text
Websites nowadays are scanned rather than read so modern web design is characterized by powerful headlines supported by large bullet points, full-page visuals and plenty of white space. Cluttered websites will hurt your conversion rates. In addition, your body copy should be at least 16 pixels to ensure legibility and anything less is a costly mistake.
Inconsistent Styles
If you have maintained your WordPress website for a while, you have copied and pasted content into your editor in visual view. This causes unnecessary formatting and garbage code which overrides your website’s font styling and causes your page or post to look different. You can delete the extraneous code in text view or redesign your website if there are lots of offending pages.
Slow Loading Time
If your website takes longer than two seconds to load, 40% of your visitors would have left according to KISSmetrics. Check that your website loads quickly across all devices with Google Page Speed Insights. A premade WordPress theme is always going to be much slower loading than a custom WordPress website. All premade themes suffer from code bloating because the developer needs to stuff every feature under the sun into ensure that it can be sold thousands of times to recoup the time investment. You could be losing tens of thousands in sales by being stingy with your website design.
Visitors Leaving or Not Converting
If you are not getting many leads or traffic from your website you might want to take a closer look at your Google Analytics. A bounce rate of under 20% or over 70% means something is very wrong. Bounce rate is the percentage of users who abandon your website after viewing one page. If your bounce rate is too good to be true (under 20%) then likely your Analytics code was not setup properly. If everyone is bouncing, many things could be putting them off like poor web design, mobile incompatibility or a slow loading time. Maybe it’s time to stop your Squarespace website.
It is Difficult to Make Content Changes
Content management systems have come a long way these days and it is extremely easily to update your content in WordPress. WordPress powers 59.6% of all content management websites and 26.6% of all websites according to W3Techs. Even large companies like TechCrunch, The New Yorker and BBC America are using WordPress. If you are still struggling to make website changes and having to call a web developer each time or you are using a cumbersome CMS like Joomla, it is time to convert.
Outdated Content
There is nothing worse than an outdated website. If you have changed your messaging, rebranded or simply outgrown your website, or embarrassed to tell people about it, you are overdue for a redesign.
Flash Content
Not only is Flash content not indexed by Google, but it is incompatible with mobile devices like iPhones, iPads and Androids which alienates the majority of your target market. Using cinemagraphs and videos will convert better.
Not Showing up in Search Results
If your website is not showing up in search results for the specific keywords that your target market is Googling, it is time to rewrite and revamp your website. A pretty website useless if it cannot be found.
Functionality Issues
Are parts of your website not working properly? Do you have missing images, broken links and error messages? While these might seem like small fixes, they could be pointing to a larger underlying issue like a disorganized site architecture.
Get a Better Web Design
If your website has more than a couple of the issues noted above, it is time to consult a web design team. A well-designed responsive website that speaks to your target market will guarantee the success of your business.