7 Signs That Your Website is Screaming for a Redesign
Have you ever heard of the 5-Second Rule? We’re not talking about that food safety myth regarding food dropped on the floor. We’re talking about the marketing principle that you have just five seconds to grab someone’s attention before they click away.
Needless to say, five seconds is not a whole lot of time. It’s amazing to think that our brains will kill an idea if it’s not piquing an immediate interest. Nevertheless, that is the time frame we are working with, and that is why it’s important to keep your website relevant and fresh.
Did you know that 87 per cent of people will conduct research before using a product or service? Throw the 5-Second Rule into the mix and you know they mean business. Suffice to say, if your website does not clearly show your services, is difficult to navigate, or takes too long to load, it’s not going to pass the 5-Second Rule. These are three of the many signs that your website needs an upgrade.
An upgrade isn’t necessarily a rebrand. Upgrading can be a simple case of chipping away at your website’s design—which you should do on a regular basis. If you haven’t tracked your website’s design in a while, chances are it’s screaming for a redesign. Here are seven signs it’s high time to hit that Refresh button.
1. Your website takes ages to load
Fact: the average website takes three seconds to load. Now think back to the 5-Second Rule. If you’ve got five seconds to grab someone’s attention, and the loading time occupies three of them, you effectively have two seconds to win them over. If your website wastes that crucial time frame loading, users will likely hit that Back button faster than…well, your website takes to load.
Did you know Google’s search algorithm will penalise slow-loading sites? This means that loading speeds will affect your search ranking as well as your conversions. To perform a quick ‘health check’, enter your domain name into Google’s Test My Site or a similar tool. If your results aren’t looking healthy, it’s time to revamp your website using simpler designs, as well as a platform that factors in speed.
2. Your website looks outdated
If your website has lengthy navigation menus, Times New Roman fonts, or backgrounds ala the Windows 95 desktop, guess what! Dial-up Internet called! It wants its ’90s web design back. Nineties and noughties vibes are great for Throwback Thursday, but if it’s your everyday, people will assume you’re out of touch. More to the point, if you haven’t updated your website since 1999, why would you care about other aspects of business?
The key to staying ahead in business is to find spaces in—and also follow—the market. For this reason, you should always keep tabs on the competition. If your competitor has undergone a rebrand, take note of their strategies. Don’t outright copy their web design, but use what they’ve done to win back some of the customers they stole from you.
Your website is a direct reflection of your brand. Keep it up to date to stay ahead of the competition. We are one the best web design agencies in australia, we can help you to overhaul your website look and experience.
3. Your website reveals little
When shoppers enter a store, they will know straight away what type of store it is. People should have the same experience when visiting your website. If your website fails to capture what your business is about, how will prospective customers know how great you are?
Your website should detail everything from your mission to the services you offer. You need to keep your website up to date with any new product or service listings, promotions, and even business updates such as rebranding or improved internal processes. When people visit a website, they’re likely looking for a solution to a problem. If you haven’t explained what you can do for them, they may look to the competition.
4. Your website is a ‘wall of text’
Whenever you see a wall of text, your first instinct is to stop reading. Moreover, when you’re visiting a website, you’re not looking to digest an essay. You’re looking for fast information. The only exception to this rule is if you have a blog or other space dedicated to displaying more extended information (case in point). And even then, you should space out your text into digestible paragraphs.
5. Your website is difficult to navigate
When writing website content, remember less is more. People remember key takeaways, not whole essays. Write in plain, accessible English only that which is necessary. ‘Walls of text’ are overwhelming, visually repellant, and counterproductive to getting a point across. Worst of all, they push your calls to action further down the page. Condense your message and people will see how they can take action sooner.
- Your website is difficult to navigate
If someone enters your website, they likely want to do one of three things:
- Read up on your business,
- Learn about your products and/or services, or
- Contact you.
If they can’t find these pages at a simple glance, then you have a problem. The user will likely hit the Back button and move on to the next website on their Google results page.
Ease of navigation is important not only for conversions but also for your search engine visibility. Google will take cues from webpage structure and information displayed to determine what goes where. If this structure is complex, Google’s crawlers will find it difficult to access. The simpler your website is to ‘crawl’, the more likely it is to appear in search results.
6. Your website has low search engine rankings
Did you know that most people don’t look beyond the first results page of Google? So, if your website is showing up on page 2 or beyond, it’s basically invisible. To push your website further up the search engine rankings, there are some strategies you can take, but that is a whole separate post. The first step to appeasing Google’s search algorithm is to ensure that your URL structures are intact and convey what your content is putting down. Take
Your website is not mobile-friendly
Of the seven signs, consider this the seventh deadly sin. If you have a website, mobile compatibility is a requirement rather than an option. Again, Google will penalise a website that isn’t mobile-friendly.
Why is mobile compatibility so important? Because 70 per cent of all browsing takes place on smartphones. People no longer save their questions for when they’re on a computer. They have a mini computer in their pockets that they can ask right now.
The key to successful business is playing to the market. And 70 per cent of that market is on a smartphone.
Is your website screaming for a redesign?
If any of these seven signs rang true for you, it’s time to take your website in a new direction. If it all sounds a bit daunting, we have the services available to help. VIS is a web design agency in Australia that also specialises in recruitment and all things SEO. Whether you want to put your company on the map or find the right person for the job, our web design agency in Melbourne has all the tools you need. We also service all of Australia—which is why you may be here off the back of a Google search for ‘digital marketing agency brisbane’ or the like.
Give us a call on 1300 777 847 or contact us online for your FREE consultation. Let’s start with web design and go from there! Our chat is obligation-free so you’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain. We can’t wait to start a conversation with you.
