In today’s digital attention economy, your website is often the first impression potential customers have of your business. It serves as your virtual storefront, representing your brand identity, values and offerings. However, as technology evolves and user expectations shift, the need for website updates or even full overhauls/redesigns becomes increasingly crucial. An outdated, difficult-to-navigate or inaccessible site can drive people away before they even learn about your products or services.
So how do you know when it’s time for a website redesign? Here are seven telltale signs:
7 signs you need a new website
1. Outdated design
Design trends are constantly evolving. However, if your website design looks like it belongs in a bygone era (e.g. think 1998 Amazon storefront), it’s time for a refresh. Users expect clean, modern and visually appealing interfaces that reflect current design trends and projects a professional, trustworthy image of your business.
2. Poor performance and conversion rates
Slow loading times, broken link, and inconsistent functionality can drive visitors away, stagnating lead generation and sales, and harm your search engine rankings. Poor content organization, lack of calls-to-action and other user experience (UX) issues can also cause low conversions and search rankings. Regular performance evaluations can help identify areas for improvement.
3. Unresponsive design
More than half of web traffic today comes from mobile devices. If your site isn’t responsive and optimized for various mobile devices (e.g. tablets, mobile phones, laptops, etc.), you stand to alienate a huge segment of potential customers. A responsive, mobile-friendly design ensures seamless browsing from any device. It is also a design feature that Google prefers for indexing.
Over 60% of website traffic comes from mobile devices.
– Josh Howarth, Exploding Topics
4. Lack of functionality
Your website should do more than just provide information. Features like lead generation forms, scheduling automation, member or customer portals, and eCommerce capabilities can enhance user experience and drive conversions. As your business grows, your website may need to evolve too.
5. SEO concerns
Search engine optimization (SEO) is crucial for visibility online. A solid strategy needs to include research-based keywords, on-page optimization, meta descriptions, alternative text and implementation of technical SEO. If your website isn’t ranking well on search engine results pages (SERPs), it’s time to assess your SEO strategy and make necessary improvements.
Examples of website accessibility barriers
- Poor color contrast
- Use of color alone to give info
- Lack of “alt text” on images
- No captions on videos
- Inaccessible online forms
- Mouse-only navigation
6. Accessibility and compliance
Making your site accessible to users with disabilities isn’t just good practice – it’s a legal requirement. With increasing emphasis on accessibility standards and regulatory compliance, ensuring your website is accessible to all users is essential. If your current design lacks proper heading structure, alt text, color contrast and other accessibility features, it could result in legal and compliance repercussions, significantly impact your SEO ranking and damage to your reputation.
7. Content strategy
If your website content is stale, thin or failing to follow SEO best practices, you’ll likely see diminishing returns from organic search. Your content should be aligned to your target personas and address their challenges versus solely focusing on keeping up with the latest social media trends. Additionally, your content should be diverse (e.g. video, infographics, blog posts, case studies, etc.) to help meet your customer where they are and how they prefer to consume information. Utilize tools like Google for Creators or Google’s Helpful Content tool to optimize your content for search engines. A content audit and rewrite, as part of a website design, can revitalize your rankings.
Your website should be treated as a living, evolving communication platform that constantly adapts to the changing needs of your business and your customers. In today’s digital landscape, your website serves as the critical first impression for your company. Outdated design or technology can immediately turn customers away and create lost conversions.
How often should you redesign your website?
While there’s no set rule of how frequently you need to redesign your website, the best-performing websites tend to go through a redesign process every two to three years. And if your website is 5+ years old, it’s likely time to re-assess the functionality, security and design features of your site—more times than not, it means you’ll likely need a full website redesign.
Not quite ready for the website overhaul? At minimum, here are some additional website best practices to follow to ensure your site remains legitimate and secure. We recommend these are complete once a month:
- Conduct website maintenance to account for plug-in updates, versioning and security updates
- Analyze core website performance metrics
- Check for broken links, videos or missing/old content
In addition to the monthly tasks, we suggest a quarterly or biannual audit to dig deep on functionality, user experience (UX) and accessibility.
We know website design and maintenance can be overwhelming and hard to navigate. You don’t have to break the bank to get professional, reliable, website development services. Whether you’re a small business owner, a marketing director, a full-service agency or a government organization, understanding the importance of keeping your website current and effective is paramount to your success.
Flying Orange has been a trusted development resource since 2007, meaning we’ve seen our fair share of design trends. Feel free to reach out for a free quote. We’re here to help with both ongoing, monthly website maintenance, or full website redesigns. We would love to learn more about your needs.