15 Reasons Why You Need to Upgrade Your Website

How do you know when the time is right to make the investment in your business to redesign your website? Your website is the face of your company, and if utilized properly, it can also be an extension of your sales team. Therefore, you want to make sure that you make the right impression on your existing and potential customers when they visit your site. If you are on the fence, Here are 15 reasons why you need to upgrade your website:

To Improve Usability

If your site visitors can’t find what they’re looking for, they’ll leave As Soon As Possible (and they probably won’t come back for a long time). If that’s the case, you’ll definitely want a new website design that’s user-friendly and keeps your customers and prospects happy.

Your Competitors Changed their Websites

Obviously, you don’t need to give your website an overhaul every time one of your competitors changes theirs. Having said that, if they make changes that improve their rankings substantially and end up pushing you down in searches, it's likely time to make some alterations to your website.

If you spend some time on a competitor’s website and realize it could meet your goals far better than your own website does, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get busy. Maintaining an edge in search shouldn’t be your only goal, but if you’re not near the top of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP),

Not Search Engine Optimization Friendly

This is obviously a pretty big one. You want to make sure you are being found on a search engine. Depending on how your website was built, just because the content exists doesn’t mean that it’s being read and indexed by Google, Bing, or Yahoo. Do all of your pages have unique keywords and content with unique titles and Meta descriptions? Are you using tabs or accordions with content that is "hidden" to Google? Most content management systems have some type of SEO-friendly functionality built in, but if you are on an old version, it may not be current enough to follow present-day SEO best practices.

Your Website's Security

Security should be one of the top priorities for businesses large and small. We hear all too often about large companies getting hacked due to weak security, Compromising client credit card or social security numbers and bank accounts. One of the top reasons why websites get hacked is because of the vulnerability in the framework and platform on which they are built. The web developers at Thee Design strongly recommend using Wordpress. It is not only one of the easiest platforms to use, but it is also one of the most secure websites for your business to be built on. It’s also updated frequently with the latest security features.

Content

First impressions may be mostly controlled by the overall design of your site, but that is only the beginning. Once you’ve grabbed their attention, you need to further interest them with great content. Your written words should be interesting and unique while also providing important information about the products and/or services you offer.

When updating or redesigning your site, this is a great opportunity to fine-tune your content. Be sure to write copy that is simple, on-target, and effective. Remember, you only have 2 to 5 seconds to engage your visitors on your site and hopefully convert them into customers. This isn’t just about wowing them with graphics; you have to use keywords and phrases that grab their interest.

They Are Losing Their Search Engine Rankings

Search engine algorithms are, by their nature, constantly evolving and becoming more and more intelligent. These days, search engines are weighing the amount of quality content on websites more heavily. This means it is time for our clients to add new content to their website to maintain their SEO rankings.

Not Responsive or Difficult to Use on Mobile

According to Stat Counter, Mobile internet usage surpassed desktop usage in 2016! So if your site doesn’t work well on mobile, you’re at risk of alienating A LOT of visitors. Despite this statistic, conversion rates on smartphones are still much lower than on laptops and desktops. Depending on your industry, you might want to leverage adaptive design instead of responsive for a customized mobile experience. No matter what design method you use, you want to keep things simple for those accessing your site on their phones. If someone is trying to look something up on their phone and can’t easily access the info they need, they likely aren’t going to wait until they get home to jump on their computer, they will go somewhere else.

If any of the pain points mentioned above sound familiar, you might want to pay particular attention to the points presented here and redesign your website. I like to think of a website the same way I think about my car. When you get to a point where you need to put a lot of time and money into repairs, you might just be better off buying a new one. It’s no fun living in a constant state of frustration and anxiety, hoping that your car (or site) doesn’t break.

Your Website has a Low Time-On-Site

Your website visitors do not stay on your site long enough because they do not find what they are looking for. This could mean that your site is complicated, confusing, or not effective.

A more effective website design will likely increase your time on site. The longer people stay on your site, the more value they find there. The more value you offer your website visitors, the more likely they are to convert.

Your Website isn't Responsive

Responsive sites will expand to the full screen of whichever device you are using. Typical devices are desktop computers, tablets, and mobile devices. Unresponsive websites can lead to some of the signs we’ve mentioned above. It can cause high bounce rates, low time-on-site, and no conversions.

In order to offer the best site experience to your website visitors, your website must be responsive and effective. This is a non-negotiable feature of your website. Your visitors will be

Your Website is Hard to Understand

Your website is hard to understand. It makes sense to you, but not to anyone else. You used fancy words that potential customers do not understand. The images on the site do not correspond with the message you want to portray. The font types are inconsistent, and the font sizes do not follow best practices.

Your Website is not as Good as Your Competitors’ Websites

People use the Internet to shop and search for the products and services they are looking for or are interested in. So, chances are, if they found your website, they also looked at your competitors sites as well. If their site is more user-friendly, draws them in, and looks better than yours, you might be losing more money in missed prospects than it would cost to upgrade your website.

Your Site is Difficult to Navigate

The people visiting your website are there for one reason: content. Your website may be graphically stunning and as responsive as Apple.com, but if the content is buried under layers of menus, submenus, or walls of words, your future customers are going to bounce off your site and on to your competitor. A fancy site with cool bells and whistles may seem fun and cutting-edge, but sometimes those bells and whistles can distract your visitors from the primary content, or worse, cause your site to load painfully slowly (another big reason for visitors to bounce).

They are Losing Their Search Engine Rankings

Search engine algorithms are, by their nature, constantly evolving and becoming more and more intelligent. These days, search engines are weighing the amount of quality content on websites more heavily. This means it is time for our clients to add new content to their website to maintain their SEO rankings.

Difficult to Update Content/Templates aren’t Flexible Enough for Content Needs

While you can go years without updating your website design, you should be updating your content no less than once a week. You definitely don’t want to have to jump through hoops and coordinate time with a web developer or IT department every time you need to add or edit some content on your site. If you find yourself increasingly frustrated with the ease and speed of making simple content changes or aren’t able to lay out pages the way you want, you have probably outgrown your current site. If the look still works for you, there is still plenty that can be done on the backend to make content entry as simple as typing into a Word document.

Your Website isn't Trustworthy or Credible

Your website is not trustworthy. It looks sketchy and unpresentable. People are afraid to buy anything on your site because "they don’t know who you are". Poor website designs can dramatically increase this feeling.

46% of people believe website design is the number one factor in determining the credibility of a business. These statistics are not made up. You can fact-check it here. Your website design is the reason why people are converting or not converting on your site.