Your website is a representation of your organisation online. It’s important to assess its website and evaluate if you website brings you to your goals and strategies. Does it attract the target audience to come in, leading them to explore your contents, and inspiring them to revisit and re-engage with the website? Does your website load quickly, and is it searchable on Google?
Otherwise, it may be time for a website redesign.
Being displayed daily in front of millions of potential visitors in the world wide web, a you only have a few seconds to show your visitors that it is worth their time and money. Similar as keeping a physical office attractive to customers, your website must also be updated and taken care of.
Here are six signs that could tell if it’s high time for your organisation to plan a website redesign:
1. It’s Been Three Years
The average lifespan of well-designed website is 3-7 years. A new design or a new programming code comes out and it instantly becomes the new standard. If you have not updated your website in more than three years, its functionalities would definitely fall short from those of your competitors who have been investing on website redesign and development for better user experience and increased conversion rate. Three years represent a slew of missed updates that could have been your key to keeping your business competitiveness online.
2. You’re Not Mobile-Friendly
Mobile use has finally eclipsed desktop use in recent years. However, many websites are still unable to keep up with mobile users’ demand for better website interface that is responsive and easy-to-navigate. Many times, mobile users have to deal with frustrating pages that do not fit the screen of their mobile devices. The good thing is, there’s the back button that they can easily click to exit from the pages. But this is not good for an organisation that owns the website. This only means missed opportunity to communicate to its target audience what the organisation stands for and what it can offer. It could be a missed potential customer for a commercial website, a missed applicant for a career portal, or a missed volunteer or donor for a non profit website.
3. Users on the Road to “Forever”
Five seconds. Online users can only wait for an average of five seconds for a webpage to load. It only takes five seconds for them to decide whether they should stay and wait for the webpage to load or hit the exit button.
While a lot of time is spent on creating better visuals and designs, easy navigational buttons, and simple-to-digest articles for the website – and that is only fair to do so; web page loading time should never ever be overlooked. What is the use of a beautifully-crafted page if it does not show up at a time when an online user expects it to? Remember, one key factor that spells success in sales and marketing whether in the traditional setup or digital space, is the ability and commitment to show up whenever a customer’s need arise. So your website should better show up.
4. Zero Conversions
Lets talk about conversions. In simple terms, conversion is the number of online users who visit a certain website and do a desired behaviour such as purchasing an item displayed on the website, downloading a posted video or e-book, or filling out the website’s Contact Us Form. While articles and buttons may be readily available in a website, this may not always spell conversion. One of the crucial factors that generate conversion is a well-designed website that infuses user experience and behaviour. This means that the website has to effectively engage and lead its visitors to perform the desired behaviours. To do this a lot of parameters have to be considered such as the following:
Concise Messaging: Can a visitor identify what the website is about within five seconds?
Clear Direction: Can a visitor easily find the right menu or buttons to go to other pages they wish to explore?
Creative Visuals: Are there high-quality visuals, whether photo, animation, or video that attract and retain a visitor’s focus?
Call-to-Action: Can a visitor easily spot the call-to-action buttons regardless of where they are on the page?
Answers to these questions are important and have to be backed up by data generated from the web analytics. If data results are disappointing, it may signal that there is a need to improve the website’s responsiveness, messaging, navigation and design.
5. Its Not Telling “Your Story”
Brand experience plays a key role in a successful sales and marketing plan of an organisation. In a website, the brand can be conveyed in how the categories are organised, type of messaging, ease of navigation, and even to the minute details of color, gradient, font, style, voice, and tone. But organisations evolve and eventually change their brand direction. As such, websites must be agile enough to adapt to the changing requirement of the organisation. This alone is a big reason to update and redesign a website, to ensure that there is consistency in how the target audience experience the brand, whether in the traditional arena or digital platform.
6. You Can’t Take Matters Into Your Own Hands
In the event, that simple content or function updates become a chore, and web maintenance costs more time and money, website redesign may already be needed. This means that contents may or may not be up-todate, but the website’s platform may no longer be robust enough to run efficiently. As such, the website is unable to perform to its optimal state. In addition, any new feature or functionality may no not be supported by an outdated platform, and this results to poor user experience.
Website redesigns play a crucial role in the consistent and successful communication with target audience. Take note however, that website redesigns are only effective if they are well-planned and executed based on customers’ needs and requirement. Regardless of the size of the redesign project, ultimately the the end goal is to deliver an engaging user experience.
