Your website is the online face of your business. It should have all the elements necessary to convey your brand’s message appropriately and make visitors stay longer on your website. Attractive design, responsive UI, up-to-date content, seamless site performance, etc are some of the features that appeal to site visitors as well as help your website rank higher on search engines.
However, if your website is facing issues such as increased bounce rates, lesser conversions, slow load times, decrease in sales, etc then it is a clear sign that you need to update it. It is important to assess your website regularly in order to identify the areas that need to be revamped. We’ve compiled a list of 9 signs which indicate that your website’s design and development needs to be updated. Read more to find out.
1. Poor Navigation
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Higher bounce rates or single-page visits are generally caused due to poor website navigation. When Google learns about your website and its increased bounce rate, your website drops down in the search engine rankings. A better navigation menu allows your website visitors to quickly access the information they are looking for. Thus, if your site lacks user-friendly navigation then it needs to be revamped.
2. Reduced sales
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Businesses, especially e-commerce companies, are most likely to experience reduced sales due to issues in website design and development. In order to compel customers to purchase your products/ services, it is important to first have high-quality graphics and relevant content so that visitors spend more time on your website. Even if you have a great range of products to offer, your website must portray them in an attractive manner so as to convince visitors to make a purchase.
3. Slow Load Times
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In his blog on ‘how loading time affects bottom line’, Neil Patel has stated that even a 1-second delay in page response can lead to a 7% reduction in conversions. Slow-loading web pages increase bounce rates considerably and affect the overall performance of your website. Hence, it is important to test your website speeds regularly and make necessary changes if your page load times are higher.
4. Non-responsive Web Design
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A majority of search queries today are made through mobile devices. Hence, it is important for businesses to build mobile-friendly websites with responsive designs so that visitors are not forced to abandon your website. If your website content including font sizes, image dimensions, and element widths do not automatically “respond” to different screen sizes, it is a sign that you need to work on your website. This requires you to make changes to design and development so that your website can easily adapt to different devices.
5. Site is Not SEO-friendly
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While businesses strive to rank higher in search engine rankings, they often miss out on ensuring SEO-friendly web design. An SEO-friendly website lets search engines efficiently crawl each page on the website, interpret the content, and index it in their database. Once they index your website content, it becomes easier for your website to rank higher and reach maximum prospects easily. Thus, an SEO-friendly web design is imperative.
6. Inconsistent Branding
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Your online marketing strategy might go in vain if your website lacks consistent messaging throughout your website. Moreover, inconsistent branding may also make it difficult for your business to attract the right prospects and improve your conversions. This makes it essential for you to revamp your website to have a matching voice, colour palette, and visual style across all the web pages.
7. Security Concerns
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Website security is one of the most prominent concerns among businesses today. Many websites contain valuable information about their business as well as their clients and customers. This makes it extremely important to ensure that your website is always protected against data breaches. If your website is not updated as per the latest coding standards and security patches, then it can be vulnerable to cyber-attacks. This makes it necessary to redesign your website to protect it against cybersecurity threats.
8. Low conversion rates
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With an SEO-friendly website, businesses are enabled to attract target audiences to their websites. However, if these visitors are not converting into customers, it is very likely that there is a problem with your website design or development. An outdated and unattractive website results in very fewer conversion rates. Make sure that your website consists of updated content, captivating graphics and clear call-to-action (CTA) buttons. If your website lacks any of these aspects, then it means that the look and feel of your website must undergo modifications.
9. You Don’t Use a CMS
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Constant website updates are necessary to display accurate information and stay in line with the latest design trends. A content management system (CMS) can help you to easily update websites without requiring any coding skills. A good CMS lets you create, manage, modify and add necessary content to your website in a hassle-free manner. It also allows you to customize the design and functionality of your website with numerous templates on offer. This makes it quite essential for you to redesign and redevelop your website using a CMS.
Do you see any of these signs on your website? If yes, then it’s a clear indication that your website design and development needs modifications. Start analysing the different areas of your website from time to time so that you can take better steps to rebuild your website. Regular website revamps can help your website to deliver the best user experience, attract more prospects, and rank higher on the search engines.
If you need any help with updating your website design and development, please feel free to get in touch with us. Our expert designers and developers can weave their magic and take your website to new heights.