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5 Surefire Signs It’s Time to Redesign Your Website (And What to Do About It)

Even though we’d like to believe otherwise, first impressions are everything.

Less than 30 seconds after meeting someone, we make up our minds about them based on how they look, speak and dress.

The Internet is even worse.

It takes people 0.05 of a second for users to make up their minds about your website.

0.05 seconds to convince them to stay and look around at all you have to offer.

0.05 seconds to determine whether they’ll give your business a chance or not.

This can sound terrifying, but all hope is not lost. There are many signs that indicate it’s time for your business to refresh its website. Some of them include outdated content, improper page layout, and low conversion rate. Since the internet is an ever-changing place, a website needs to be updated as well. Your audience might change too since your customers grow older and their children grow up.

Here are five big signs that signal it’s time for a business to give its website a full redesign:

1. Your website looks like it was created in 2002.

Would you show up at a black-tie company party in a singlet or ripped jeans?

Of course, you wouldn’t.

Doing such a thing would make you look unprofessional. No matter how brilliant your social skills are, no one would take you seriously.

Having a website that still looks like it belongs in the early days of the Internet would have the same effect. You would lose a potential customer’s trust in less than a minute. If your website doesn’t even look professional, then surely your services or products are subpar as well?

As soon as they open your website and see that it hasn’t been updated in years, what do you think they’re going to do? They’re going to leave and go to your competitors.

Imagine that you run a cleaning business and one of your competitors has a website that looks like it was made in 2002. It’s disorganiaed, filled with grammatical mistakes, and looks like it was designed by a pre-teen. You would probably lose any trust in their services.

If you feel like this describes your business’s current website, then it’s a telltale sign that it needs an update.

2. Your clients have a hard time finding your social media accounts.

Your website has one main goal.

To find customers.

Since that’s the case, don’t make things difficult for them.

Give them plenty of choices. You might communicate via email, but hinting at them to follow you on social media has perks, too. When customers see more of you, you have more chances to remind them that you exist.

They can discover new things about your services. They’ll know that you’re offering a 20% discount. They’ll know that you’re opening a new branch at a location near them.

They’ll know all that if they follow you.

While email is still one of the channels businesses use to communicate with people, social media sites are rapidly becoming a more powerful way for businesses to market themselves. To improve your conversion rate, tie your marketing efforts together.

So, make sure links to your social media profiles are visible on every page of your site.

3. Your website isn’t converting visitors into customers.

After potential and existing customers land on your website, what are they supposed to do?

Should they sign up for your newsletter?

Answer a survey?

Want to use a coupon you’re offering as soon as possible?

Nowadays, it’s a must for a business’s website to have a conversion funnel. These are the steps your visitor should take across your website that lead to you making a sale.

After you decide that you need to update your website, try to think of a conversion funnel first. How can your website help you make more sales? How can you measure those sales?

Come up with a step-by-step strategy. For example, you can offer visitors a 10% discount on your services if they sign up for your newsletter.

Once you have your ideas, try to see how each of these items can be converted into measurements. For example – if you receive 1 newsletter sign-up per visitor that comes to your website, then it’s 10% and if you receive 2 subscriptions, it’s 20%.  You should take this into consideration when deciding on a conversion funnel.

Think of something of value to offer your visitors. If it’s unique to your business, that’s even better.

4. Your website doesn’t appeal to your ideal customer.

Different things appeal to different people.

Business owners sometimes forget the wisdom behind that statement. They try to appeal to everyone and end up wasting time and resources. The thing is, though, if you try to please everyone, you’ll end up pleasing no one.

Not everyone will like your logo or identify with what your brand represents. It’s impossible for your website to turn every visitor into a lead.

But it is possible to increase the chances that a very specific group of people will want to buy from you. Try to answer the following questions:

• How old are they?
• What do they like?
• How do they talk?
• How often do they go online?
• Which sites do they frequent?

If you have answers to the questions above, then congratulations! You’ve learned more about your ideal customer. Let that new knowledge inform how your site looks and what it will contain moving forward.

5. Your website isn’t responsive.

A responsive website, well, responds to the device used to view it. It is different from most websites that are designed for a specific device.

So if you’re viewing the site with your phone, you can see the content in a convenient way regardless of whether you’re browsing articles in the blogs section or checking out your shopping cart.

Viewing a website on mobile is different from viewing it on a desktop. You don’t have the patience to zoom in and out of a site to read the content, because the font is too small. The buttons can’t be too close together, because you might press the wrong link and open a different page.

A customer wouldn’t have to deal with those problems on a responsive website. Whether you’re viewing the site on a laptop, tablet or mobile phone, it adapts. No matter the device, the content looks perfect.

Having a responsive website can also affect your rankings in search engine results pages.

When users leave your website right away, Google will think it’s because they didn’t like your content. Your ranking will drop. Another site with similar content but with a nicer, more professional design will rise higher.

Conclusion

You only have one chance to make a good first impression online. Do everything you can to make it a good one.

A fresh, up-to-date website design is needed to look professional.

Links to your social media accounts should be easy to find on your website.

You need a conversion funnel–something that converts visitors into sales–on your website.

Know who your ideal customer is, and create your website design and content for him or her.

Since a huge number of users view websites on mobile, your website needs to be responsive.

Cornerstone Digital’s web designers in Sydney would be glad to help redesign your website. Talk to us today. Call us on (02) 8211 0668 or email us at info@cornerstone-digital.com.au.

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Darlyn Herradura

A self-professed book and digital marketing nerd, Darlyn Herradura focuses on building trust between customers and businesses with the written word. She understands that creating valuable content is the best way to get found online and happily spends her time doing that.