Today, your website is often the first touch-point for a new (or potential) customer.
It’s likely they’ve found you through a Google search, or maybe they saw an ad on Facebook, or, perhaps, they passed your bricks and mortar store while they were driving the other day.
Regardless of the way they found you, your website elicits an opinion about your entire brand within just seconds. Is your website projecting the wrong image? Or is it looking tired and dated? This is what you should look at when considering a website redesign or brand new web development.
The typography doesn’t feel right
Maybe it doesn’t match your brand’s personality. Or perhaps it’s terribly outdated (nobody uses Comic Sans. Don’t tell me you haven’t heard about its meme?!)
Does your current typography translate well beyond the desktop? Changing behaviours as well as evolving technologies means website and being viewed (and the internet is being used) on many different devices, all of which have very different sizes and specifications.
Does your font look like it could be better suited on a kid’s birthday invitation, a garage sale flyer, or a postcard from sunny Florida in the year 1998?
Your website is not optimised for viewing on mobiles or tablets (time to wake up to responsive web design!)
Ohhhh, your website is one of those, those frustrating time suckers that force me to pinch, zoom and scroll from left to right to read even the simplest of sentences. (And how do I click your ‘contact’ button? My fingers aren’t that fat, are they?!)
Even if you built your website on this side of this millennium, there’s still a chance it was built without multiple screen sizes in mind. The easiest solution? A responsive website, which automatically adjusts to look great on whatever device.
(Read more about the importance of responsive web design.)
64 per cent of Americans own a smartphone. That’s a lot. And it’s up from 35 per cent in 2011. That’s an enormous growth.
Here in Australia, smartphone ownership has more than doubled in four years; three-quarters of Australians own smartphones. Further, it’s predicted that a whopping 91 per cent of Australia’s popular will own a smartphone by 2017.
P.S: Just last month, Google rolled out a new algorithm update. Websites that are not mobile-friendly are set to suffer in mobile search rankings. Find out more about Google’s April algorithm update and learn what you need to do to ensure your website is mobile-friendly / responsive.
Your website takes ages to load
Large images and heavy, complicated animations can often take a long time to load.
Slow load times are one of the main turnoffs for website visitors: in a world where information is consistently available in milliseconds rather than seconds, it’s really no surprise to learn that 40 per cent of people will abandon a website if it takes more than three seconds (also known as ‘an eternity’) to load.
Your site is heavily built on Flash
If your site was built in the early 2000s, it’s likely that Flash was used.
Did you know that Flash can’t be viewed on most smartphones or tablets? Imagine the number of users trying to visit you on any other device than a desktop who aren’t able to see your website. Additionally, Google (and other search engines) cannot read Flash images or banners.
People don’t like Flash. There’s even a movement to rid the world of it!
Illogical (or just plain ugly) content design
This goes beyond the words on your website; rather the way in which your content is displayed on your webpages. The formatting and arrangement of your page content can repel readers: long blocks of text, with few paragraph breaks and no headings look intimidating to a reader, and will often be overlooked.
Formatted and ‘designed’ content is far more attractive: headlines guide a reader, dot points, lists and tables are easy to scan, and concise paragraphs are more inviting than a single block of black and white text.
You chose free or cheap web design
Uh-oh!
Free websites not only affect SEO, they can also harm your credibility, offer paltry customisation, and can end up costing you more in the long run. A free website might be okay for personal endeavours, but for a business? The terms “free website” and “business” rarely go hand-in-hand.
Your website is more than just a front cover. Not only is it the online face of your brand or company, but, if you’re an e-commerce retailer, your website is also a part of your business and where you expect to sell goods and services and ultimately make money.
Of course you can choose a cheap (or free!) web design company. But, as the saying goes, you get what you pay for (that is: poor customer support, frequent downtime, ugly ads, and slow load times. Ouch.)
It “looks” old, or you’re simply over it
Sometimes it’s hard to put your finger on just what it is that makes a website look outdated.
Do you occasionally look at your website and feel like it’s been plucked out of 2004 and dropped into 2015? Or maybe you’re just over it. It’s tired and overdone, and you want a makeover!
Maybe your ego has taken a bit of a hit after you have seen your competitor’s brand-new, slick website.
Perhaps that comparison is the final ounce of conviction you need.
You aren’t getting any leads (this might be more than a website redesign: you need a complete digital strategy)
This is a red flag: if your website is getting poor amounts of traffic and a poor number of leads (or even decent amounts of traffic but you’re not capturing leads), then something needs to change – immediately.
This issue may be any of the three reasons below:
Firstly, are prospects easily finding your website?
Is your outdated website affecting your rankings and credibility? Go to Google right now and type in your business name. Safe to say you’d appear right up the top, right? What about a few variations of your main products or services? Perhaps include a suburb. Page 1? 2? 3? Lower?? Older websites, which aren’t periodically updated and adjusted to adhere to Google’s changing algorithms, might result in your website suffering from poor rankings. As a result, your traffic suffers.
The solution here could be a tactic such as search engine optimisation (SEO). Thorough SEO research identifies what people are searching for which in turn helps you to create optimised content on your website that helps fulfil these searches queries.
Secondly, are you using effective calls-to-action throughout on your website?
OK, so visitors are landing on your site, but somewhere around here there’s a disconnection.
Spell it out to them: what is it you want them to do once they get to your website? Forms should contain only as many fields as are needed (and no more), and make sure you’re only asking prospects to submit relevant information (We’ve all been there, and wondered “what on earth does my household income have to do with ANY OF THIS?!”)
Visitors should be able to easily submit details or see your contact information (including phone numbers, social media links, addresses and maps); they shouldn’t have to go hunting around your dead website to find the simplest of information.
Thirdly, are you telling customers what they want to hear?
- Are you explaining all the great benefits they will receive if they buy and use your product?
- Are you explaining your service, your customer care, and your returns policy?
- Are you instilling confidence in them by showing off previous work, testimonials, and case studies?
- Are you showcasing expert knowledge and providing them helpful information through your business blog?
- Do you tell them what you want them to do? (Fill in a form, call you, request more information, download an e-book, sign up for a free trial, follow you on social media, etc.)
- Does a visitor, within seconds of landing on your home page, understand what it is you can do for them?
Write about what you want your customers to know, and about what you think they want to know.
A digital strategy involves multiple tactics
Low numbers of leads and poor quality leads is often a sign where thorough and proper digital strategy would be most useful. If your purpose is unclear and you’re not completely sure of the audiences you could and should be targeting, your website is likely sitting there stagnantly. Purpose-driven design, accompanied by various other marketing tactics, overlap, combine, and work together for the overarching goal of generating more (and better quality) awareness, leads and sales.
A long-term digital strategy is not focused on pushy sales pitches; rather it’s about a user-friendly website combined with helpful website content that guides visitors through the (often long and sometimes complicated) purchase cycle.
Whatever the reason, we can help revamp a tired website. And we don’t mind saying that we’re very good at it. Check out our web design portfolio and fill in the form below to start talking.