Half a second – that’s FAST!
Did you know that it only takes half a second for viewers to form an opinion about your website?
0.05 seconds.
That is all it takes for a viewer to decide whether or not a website is “good enough” for them.
They’ll either stay or go.
This is one of the biggest reasons why your website design has to be up to date. And, if it’s not, you need to get on that redesign as soon as possible.
You could be losing business as you’re reading this – yikes!
The question is, “how do you know when you need to redesign your website?”
Well, there are a few signs and risk factors that you can look out for.
To learn about those, keep reading, cause we got you covered!
We’re going to share the top five warning signs that we see commonly among our clients.
And, if you’re reading this, it’s likely that you fall under one of these categories.
Table of Contents
1. Your Website Isn’t Responsive
If your website isn’t working on multiple platforms, “Houston we have a problem.”
It doesn’t matter what industry you work in. The digital revolution has already started, and you’re missing out.
The good thing is it’s never too late.
The NUMBER ONE problem that we see among owners and website designers is their sites not being compatible with mobile. It’s no secret that mobile searching is quickly outgrowing any other method of search.
The average person checks their smartphone about 46 times a day.
Mind-blown!
That’s a lot of time that your potential clients are spending searching, interacting, and playing on something that’s not a traditional computer.
If you’re looking to reach a larger audience, you need to make sure that your website is compatible with mobile.
Website Redesign for Mobile Compatibility
If your website isn’t compatible with mobile devices, you need to redesign your website.
You may be using an older format or an unfriendly layout for mobile devices.
Either way, you need to change these conditions as soon as possible. If someone tries to look for your website right now, they may not be able to read anything or access what they’re looking for.
By solving this problem quickly, you could be fixing a website traffic problem that you didn’t know you had.
In short, mobile compatibility is essential for today’s websites.
2. Your Website Looks Like a Throwback from 2001
We all know the infamous Throwback Thursday posts. They tell stories and jokes about older times and share embarrassing things that we all used to do.
Your website shouldn’t look like that.
In other words, you need to redesign your website if it appears to be five or more years old. These days, even a year can make a difference when it comes to trends.
When in doubt, make a change.
If you’re not sure whether or not your website is updated, it’s likely that it isn’t. And, if you haven’t had any kind of redesign in a few years, now is the time to do it.
Updating Your Website
Many website owners look at their website like their house. Would you invite potential customers over if you had trash on the floor? How about if there were big marks on the walls?
Let’s hope your answer is “umm….nooo!”.
The same philosophy applies to your website. You don’t want to invite your website viewers to a website that’s less than inviting.
So, to update your website, you need to make sure that you’re making a clean, accessible layout.
The busy, ad-ridden websites of the early 2000s are gone.
Today’s consumers prefer clean, minimalistic websites that are easy to navigate.
Before you start the website redesign process, you should create a design roadmap. This will help you determine what you want the layout of your website to be before you start making changes.
On this website design roadmap, you should list out all of the pages that you’re going to have. Then, you should sort out the navigation that you want your visitors to go through as they’re browsing your website.
As you’re doing this, you should make sure that you don’t create too deep of a roadmap.
You want to make site navigation as easy as possible. So, create only a few clicks between the home page and any other page on your website.
3. Your Lead Conversion Rate Is Low or Decreasing
Lead conversion is massively important.
Your lead conversion rate tells you how many prospective customers you’re turning into actual customers. If you aren’t convincing leads to make purchases, this rate is likely low.
The average conversion rate of a website landing page is 2.35%, although it varies with the industry that you’re in.
If you’re trying to figure out if your conversion rate is low or not, you should evaluate other businesses within your industry. If you have a few years of data, you should also compare your current numbers to those older numbers.
If you do find that your lead conversion rate is low or decreasing, you need to act fast. Those are customers and orders that you’re losing over time. And, it’s likely that your website may be the problem.
How to Improve Your Landing Page With a Website Redesign Project Plan
In order to increase your conversion rate, you need to improve your landing page.
Period.
This is one of the most common reasons for low and decreasing conversion rates.
First, you need to set a few goals. You can’t evaluate how well (or how poorly) your website redesign was if you don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish.
After you decide where you want this redesign process to take your business, you should work on simplifying your landing page. Companies with lower conversion rates are more likely to have cluttered websites, including the landing page.
Big, bold headlines and clean backgrounds make landing pages more attractive to visitors. Thus, they’ll be more likely to sign up for your newsletter and/or make a purchase. Either way, they’re advancing along in the customer journey.
Next, you need to add the punchline to your landing page. In a few words, you need to convince visitors to give their information to your company.
You need to tell them what makes you special.
This is the hardest part of the landing page. At the same time, it’s the most important. So, you need to take your time creating this part.
After that, you can add a couple of images that make the page more appealing. Remember, we don’t want to clutter the page. We just want to decorate it.
If you overload the page with too many elements, it could become overwhelming for visitors.
At the end of this process, you want to have a landing page that’s clean yet attractive. Then, you’ll be able to improve your conversion rate and see if this page is helping you meet your goals.
4. Your Load Time Is Longer Than The COSTCO Line
That’s right. Your load time should only be a few seconds, three seconds at the most.
Today’s consumers don’t have the patience to wait around for your website to load. And, if it does take a while to load, they’re more likely to leave the website than sit and wait.
Loading time is inversely correlated with conversion rate and sales. This means that a lower loading time correlates to higher conversion rates and more sales. (Tip: You can also use these psychological pricing tips to encourage potential customers to make a purchase.)
Loading time also affects your search engine ranking. Search engines like Google and Yelp want to suggest fast websites for their searchers to use. Thus, they’re more likely to suggest websites that are faster.
Of course, there are other considerations like content and retention. But, loading time is a detail that website owners often forget about.
If your loading time is poor, there are ways that you can fix it. However, you should make changes as soon as possible.
How to Improve Your Load Time With a Website Redesign Proposal
To improve your load time, you need to make changes to your website. Every second counts. In fact, the probability that a visitor will bounce from your site will increase by 32% when the load time increases from one to three seconds.
Here are some of the best ways to improve the load time of your website:
- Optimize the size of your image by reducing it
- Use .jpeg as your image format
- Optimize plugins by removing those that you don’t need
- Reduce the number of tracking scripts that you use on your website
- Update your CMS software as soon as there’s an update available
- Avoid inline JS and CSS files
- Optimize cache by reducing the number of subsequent requests
- Avoid render-blocking scripts
- Avoid redirecting visitors when they visit pages
- Consider G-Zip encoding to compress large files
- Reduce the number of HTTP requests
- Reduce the number of cookies that your website uses
With all of these tips under your belt, you’ll be able to improve your site’s loading time quickly. In turn, you may find that your visitor retention rates improve.
In the long run, you’ll encourage more visitors to come to your website. And, you’ll have the ability to bring in more leads and make more sales.
5. Your SEO Strategy Is Outdated, Inconsistent, or Not Even A Thing
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a set of strategies that help website owners place their websites at the top of search result pages. In short, SEO is one of the must-dos for your website.
As we briefly mentioned earlier, search engines are looking for the best websites to show their searchers.
So, search engines are trying to find websites that give quality content to their visitors. To find these websites, search engines look for keywords, retention rates, and more.
SEO strategies are the foundations of good websites. If you haven’t updated your SEO strategy any time soon, it’s likely that your website is nowhere near where it needs to be.
A successful SEO strategy constantly evolves to new trends. As search engines become smarter, the needs change. That’s why you should stay updated on the latest SEO trends.
And, if you haven’t rebuilt your SEO strategy recently, now’s the time.
Rebuilding Your SEO Strategy
Your SEO strategy is going to be different from every other strategy out there. That’s because strategies vary based on company, industry, and interest.
With that in mind, you should go ahead and evaluate popular SEO strategies. Search engine optimization has been growing for years, and many experts have released information about the best ways to make SEO strategies.
Here are some common SEO practices:
- Choose and use keywords and key phrases throughout your website and in website URLs
- Write high-quality content on every single page of your website
- Focus on user experience over anything else
- Consider starting a blog to increase your optimization potential
- Build links to improve your site’s reputation
If you’ve created and followed an SEO strategy before, it’s likely that you’ve practiced with some of these tips before. However, if you haven’t done so recently, the idea of high-quality content may be new.
Search engines became overwhelmed with keyword stuffing and poor web design. In response, they changed their algorithms to find websites that offer quality information rather than nonsense.
Is It Time For A Website Redesign?
There are plenty of reasons to redesign your website, but these are the most common that we see.
If your website falls under one of these five reasons, it’s time to make some changes.
However, we understand that redesigning a website can be complicated. That’s why many website owners hire someone to help.
And, ta-da!
Here we are – we can help you redesign your website.
No matter how experienced (or inexperienced you are), we can help you improve your website.
We’re ready to help you change your business today!
One Response
Thanks for delivering such an exciting post. I hope to see more great posts like this in the future and keep the good work going on.