Webbiz UX Designer Julie Morand, suggested that a blog post that answered ‘When is it time to redesign my website?’ would be valuable to business owners, and we agreed!
Understanding when you require a redesign will help you avoid redesigning your website too often (this can happen due to a lack of an overriding and aligned strategy or the job not being right in the first place), and you’ll also avoid having a website that isn’t working for your business.
Your Website Design Matters
Before examining the signs that your website needs a redesign, let’s first establish why it’s essential to your business. A strong online presence is no longer an advantage or an option but a necessity for businesses looking to succeed today. A company’s website is more than a virtual storefront; it reflects its brand, values, and products or services.
As trends and technology evolve, so do the expectations and preferences of your customers. An out-of-date or underperforming website will detrimentally influence your growth, reputation, and income. From our experience in the industry, we’ve created this helpful list that provides signs that your website may be due for a fresh design.
Reasons to Update Your Website
Outdated Design and User Experience (UX)
Does the design look old-fashioned? If it does, visitors may question whether the content is current. And are users having issues navigating through the site? That’s User Experience.
When we talk about UX, we refer to how seamless the visitor’s journey is from first accessing the website to being able to find the information they need to become an engaged customer in as few clicks as possible. If information is difficult to find and the path to conversion is unnecessarily long, it’s probably time for a redesign.
High Bounce Rate and Low Engagement
A high bounce rate and low engagement metrics (e.g., time on site, page views) mean that your content isn’t engaging. This is a little different from UX design, where users are struggling to find the content. This is about your content needing to be improved.
A website redesign could help align the website with your content strategy to keep visitors entertained and reduce bounce rates. Webbiz can assist with high bounce rates and low engagement and help you decide if you need a redesign or just a review of your content strategy, which is a service we offer as well.
Low Conversion Rates
If your website is failing to turn visitors into conversions, you need to examine the design of the website to see if that’s the reason. When we redesign a customer’s website, we focus on improving the website’s conversion rate. Some straightforward ways to do this include call-to-action buttons, forms, and landing pages. But we begin with competitor and industry research before implementing a design strategy to maximise your website’s conversion rate.
Shift in Brand Identity or Business Goals
Everything is in a constant state of flux, even businesses. As a business evolves, or its branding and goals change over time, the website may be due for a redesign. If a company’s online presence no longer aligns with the company’s identity or objectives, then a redesign will help realign the digital representation of the company with its current vision.
Poor Responsiveness
A responsive website is essential in today’s mobile-first world. In the US, 67.81% of the total web visits are currently mobile, compared to 32.19% coming from desktops. If your website isn’t optimised for various devices, especially smartphones, you probably need a redesign to ensure a consistent and user-friendly experience across all platforms.
Slow Loading Speed
Slow-loading websites lead to higher bounce rates as users lose patience and move on. Website visitors lose focus when the wait time increases beyond 0.3-3 seconds. Web performance optimization (WPO) directly and positively impacts the user experience, examples of which you can see by visiting wpostats.com.
Page speed optimization is essential for both user satisfaction and search engine rankings. Google rewards websites that have the highest technical quality. A website redesign will address performance issues and improve loading times.
Outdated Technology
Using outdated technology or platforms can restrict the website’s capabilities and hinder its potential for growth. We are passionate about innovation in tech and always seek to optimise the digital presence of a business by implementing the technology that supports its ambitions. A redesign from an innovative web agency such as ours will leverage the latest web development technologies and content management systems to ensure a future-proof website.
Inadequate SEO Performance
If the website is struggling to rank well in search engine results, it may need a redesign to implement better SEO practices. A well-optimised site can attract more organic traffic and improve its online visibility. Our SEO services ensure your website can be easily found organically, maximising your return on your website investment. We provide on-site & off-site SEO audits, keyword analysis, roadmaps, link-building, and SEO consulting, as part of a larger project that includes a redesign or as an isolated SEO service.
Integrating New Features
As technology advances, new opportunities emerge to integrate better functionality or additional features into your website. This shouldn’t be done just for the sake of it but for enhancing the user experience or meeting the industry standards. We can offer a review of your current website and suggest improvements if any features or functionality can be improved. It may be necessary to redesign your website in line with such implementations.
Competitor Analysis
If the websites of your competitors have more modern, engaging, and creative designs with better functionalities than yours, it’s a clear signal that a website redesign is necessary to remain competitive in the market.
Redesign Your Website With Webbiz
Webbiz designs websites that last. One way we achieve this is by considering the complete company processes and vision through every step of our process, not only a static image of the present.
To guarantee long-term performance and even continued optimisation, we offer SLAs to support and manage your future growth, also providing training to make easy updates on the site. Contact the team today to discuss your website.