You know your website is the heartbeat of your business. It’s where customers can come to discover and connect with your products and services. A website is essential to succeed in the digital age and provides the groundwork necessary to advertise and sell to your ideal audience.
Website design is constantly being developed and upgraded to create a more interactive and immersive experience for the viewer. The days of basic, flat websites are over. Today’s websites need to create an experience and a journey for the viewer to follow. However, too many businesses undercut their revenues because they have an outdated and poorly functioning website.
Today, we’ll take a look at six signs that you need a new website ASAP.
No one wants to wait for a website to load. If your site doesn’t load quickly (i.e. takes a few seconds to load), visitors will jump off and go somewhere else. In addition, Google looks at site speed as a ranking factor in their search results. To help you test your site speed, Google added Speed Index to its WebPagetest site to measure website performance. The Speed Index is the average time (in milliseconds) that visible parts of your web page are displayed.
A word of warning, don’t try to Google yourself or test your load time on your browser. Your browser keeps a history of your sites, and you’ll show up as higher ranking as well as your load speed will look normal. If you want to check, open an incognito window and either Google yourself or type in your web address. If you see that it’s slow, check out the Speed Index and verify how slow it truly is.
Mobile devices account for the majority of web traffic. As a result, you need a website that works on every device—a site that is mobile responsive. The website’s code is written to identify the device a visitor is on and adjust the look of your website to function within the aspect ratio and pixel density of the device it is being viewed on, so that every user has the same experience.
You might notice that fewer people call your business, or maybe you’ve noticed a decrease in form submissions on your website. Even though your site is getting a lot of traffic, if you do not see an increase in leads or form submissions, your website isn’t effectively converting visitors to leads and—ultimately—customers.
This issue comes from problems with your site’s design and search engine optimization (SEO). You may not have the content people are looking for, or your forms may not be working as they should. Although there are many reasons, you aren’t getting leads, hiring an experienced website designer can help give you an updated design and get more conversions from your site.
Brands, products, and company messaging evolve. Therefore, your site must evolve as well. You never get a chance to make an excellent first impression. When a visitor comes to your website, they are looking for a service or product to fill a specific need. If you’re not showing the most updated information, they may get lost and leave without interacting with your site.
Updating your site helps you keep on the leading edge of design and technology, offering visitors an engaging and inviting experience. When you combine updated design with relevant content, viewers are more willing to fill out forms and engage with your company.
It’s been found that the age of your website directly impacts the level of interest in fixing site errors. This could be misspelling, bad links, forms that don’t work correctly, or outdated content. When the information presented on your site is full of mistakes, inconsistencies, and old information, it’s time for an update.
Additionally, as your website gets older, it may start to lack a consistent look and feel. If someone from inside your company is updating your website on their own, this can lead to a lack of consistency in your messaging, branding, and more.
A lack of consistency leads to making your message and branding ineffective. Not to mention, the information structure and site organization become a nightmare for customers to navigate, which can cause them to leave and not interact with your site.
It’s recommended that most businesses perform a website redesign every 3-6 years or whenever there is a major branding or directional change for the business (whichever comes first). This is because web design trends change, content management systems are updated, and new technology is created. In addition to needing a refresh on your design, an older website becomes slower, the content is less impactful, and visitors get a feel that your website has been neglected.
When you update your website regularly, you and your designer can work together and decide if you need an entire brand refresh or if the site just needs to be updated and optimized. Keeping up-to-date on current design best practices and utilizing technology to streamline your user experience will help you attract new visitors and keep your existing customers coming back to see what’s new.
Creating a custom website for your business seems as easy as using Google.
When you search “create your website,” you’ll find results that include everything from a list of platforms to build on as well as courses available for those who want to do it all on their own.
But designing a website for your business takes time, experience, and a creative eye.
It may seem like it’s going to be easy to create a website yourself — but almost every customer we have ever had that has tried to do it alone regrets it. It always takes longer than they think it will, and the result is never what they hoped for.
At Bhirst Media, we have experience in website optimization as well as building website for various customers and a variety of different needs. We understand what it takes to build a website that looks good, is optimized for search engines, and is designed for lead generation.
You don’t have to try and do this alone — let us help. Check out our website design, development, and website care plans today.
