Your website is your online identity. It’s probably also fair to say that however your website looks and behaves will inform most of your audience’s opinion of you. So, if you’re sites clunky, your audience may negatively perceive your business.
To change your target audience’s overall perception of your brand, take a careful look at your website design. If it suffers from one or more of these design issues, it’s time to invest in a new website design.
1. It’s not mobile friendly
The importance of having a website that’s mobile friendly cannot be overstated. Need a dose of reality? Smart Insights found that over 20% of Google searches are done from a mobile device.
When someone is looking for a local service or good, that more than doubles. Over half of local searches are done on a mobile device.
Utilize responsive website design to update your site. With responsive design, your website can easily be accessed on a screen of any size: from desk tops to mobile phones. It’s good for your customers and it’s good for you!
2. Unable to easily find information on your site
If even you have trouble finding information about your brand, products or services on your website, redesign immediately. If you are struggling, the consumer will, too, and that means you are losing potential customers.
3. No prominent way to connect to your social media accounts
A key component in any website is allowing your users to connect with you.
The way to do this is through social media integration. If your users cannot easily access your social media profiles from your website, you are missing out on an important way to directly communicate with your audience.
4. Even you can’t find your website on any of the search engines
Can’t find your website on any of the search engines? No one else will, either.
In order to rank in the search engine results, your website needs to be redesigned to help boost your search engine optimization (or SEO). All of the content on your website will need to be re-written to match current SEO trends.
5. Your website doesn’t load in 3 seconds or less… seriously
Research done by KISSmetrics found that 40% of people will leave a website that has not loaded in 3 seconds. This same research showed that 47% of web users look for a website that loads in 2 seconds or less. Time is of the essence when it comes to your website. If you’re load times are slow, start redesigning.
6. Your brand has evolved but your site has not
Since your website is really the face of your brand in a lot of instances, it needs to be consistent with your brand’s message. If your branding has evolved and or you’ve added or taken away products or services, it’s probably time to update your website.
7. Your site autoplays anything
Whether your site begins playing music, video or some other type of audio as soon someone clicks on it, this can be a a big detractor for a lot of people. Most users want to be in control of the media they experience on your website.
8. Content is difficult to update
Content is king. Current trends in SEO place a lot of emphasis on website content that is constantly being updated. This is seen as providing users with relevant, current information. If your website is preventing you from updating your content, redesign. This is severely hurting how search engines rank your site.
9. You don’t actually like to share your web address
This may seem silly, but it’s true. If you actually shy away from sharing your website with people, it’s time for a website overhaul. A well designed website is yet another way for you to share your branding message and connect with your audience. If you don’t want to share your website, the current design is doing you no good.
10. One word: Flash
In case you’ve been living under a rock (or have never heard of Apple), iPhones and iPads do not support Flash. Even worse than that, the major search engines (yep, Google, Bing and Yahoo!) are unable to read Flash.
It’s fairly easy to determine whether or not your website needs a redesign.
Let’s face it, deep down you probably already know if your website is lacking in one or more areas. There’s no point to even having a site if you are not concerned about the overall user experience. If you found yourself nodding your head “yes” as you read over a lot of these website don’ts, start your redesign now.
Contact us today for a free design consultation to see how we can help.
