Your business' website is one of the first things customers notice. A blog from the Business Dasher notes that 75% of users evaluate a company’s trustworthiness based on its website's appearance. If your web page fails to captivate potential customers, they will quickly turn to your competitors.
This is why companies must recognise when it’s time to update their web pages. This article outlines five signs that indicate that your website needs a redesign to remain competitive in the digital world.
Most people are surfing the web through their smartphones. Statista reports that 96.2% of the global population accessed the internet via their mobile devices in Q2 2024. In comparison, only 54.6% of users surf the web through their laptops or desktop devices in the same period.
For this reason, your company’s website design must work on all devices, especially smartphones. You also need to make sure that it doesn’t show signs of poor user experience like:
To address these issues, companies should adopt these best practices, as discussed in the “Digital Marketing Made Simple” podcast by Jennie Lyon:
A beautiful website is not enough. It also needs to be visible and rank well in search engines. Research from Michigan Technological University shows that on-page SEO is essential for success on platforms like Google. If your website is losing organic search traffic, outdated SEO techniques could be the cause.
To stay ahead in search engine results pages (SERPs), it's crucial to stay updated on the latest SEO best practices. The Simple SEO podcast by Rachel Lindteigen shared some SEO best practices for websites, which are:
Use relevant keywords: Focus on customer-centered, high-ranking keywords that match user searches. Write for your audience: Create content that is valuable and engaging for your readers, not just for search engines.
Make your content easy to scan: Organize with headers, bullet points, and white space so users can quickly find what they need.
Use relevant and credible internal and external links: Linking to appropriate and authoritative internal and external sources improves navigation for users while search engines index your site.
Optimise for Google and ChatGPT: Placing keywords in important SEO elements like titles, meta descriptions, and alt texts enables search engines to understand what your content is all about. For ChatGPT SEO, focus on clear and conversational content that answers user queries to ensure it’s picked up by the AI tool.
As your business grows, your website must evolve to support new products, services, or customer interaction methods. Old websites face issues like:
Database bottlenecks: Your databases can become overwhelmed, especially if your number of users has increased.
This can result in delayed responses and slow queries.Insufficient load testing: Websites not tested for real-world traffic levels often fail under high user loads.
Hardware limitations: Websites that are powered by outdated servers are vulnerable during traffic spikes, which can slow down their load times.
These scalability problems can be solved through the implementation of the following:
Optimise structured query language (SQL) and apply appropriate indexing to improve data retrieval.
Conduct comprehensive load testing to identify system limitations.
Upgrade hardware resources by using faster storage solutions like SSDs.
Companies are bound to evolve. According to AlixPartners, 98% of CEOs expect to change their business model in the next 3 years. So, if your company wants to launch a new product or rebrand, your website should reflect these changes.
Here’s how you can successfully redesign your website:
Assess your current website: Use tools like Google Analytics, Hotjar, or HubSpot’s Website Grader to identify your site’s weaknesses.
Identify the need for a redesign: Websites with an old design and poor user experience should undergo a redesign.
Set clear goals and objectives: Use SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) to establish what you want to achieve with your redesign.
Plan the redesign strategy: Create a blueprint that includes your target audience, potential competitors, budget, and timeline for implementation.
Conduct a content audit: Review all existing content to decide what to keep, update, or remove.
Prepare for the launch: Test your redesigned website to avoid encountering problems in the long run.
A website redesign is not just about aesthetics. It is an investment that can deliver positive results. Here are some things you can expect:
Enhanced user experience (UX). An intuitive and visually appealing website keeps visitors engaged and encourages them to explore further. Data from Mike Gualtieri from Forrester states that an improved UX design can potentially increase conversion rates by up to 400%. This was also evident in our UX design overhaul for the safety and security brand Noggin, which increased their conversion rates by 5.4 times.
Improved SEO performance. A redesigned website that follows SEO guidelines has higher search engine rankings and organic traffic.
Scalability for future growth. A redesigned website can become a scalable asset that grows alongside your business. Platforms like HubSpot CMS can help companies easily craft stunning and optimized web pages.
Transform your digital presence with Thirtyfour Creative. Our award-winning web design services combine creativity and growth strategy to deliver results. We are also experts in HubSpot integration, allowing you to automate and enhance your brand’s customer engagement seamlessly. Whether you’re looking to create a custom website or improve your existing one, we are here to ensure that your brand stands out from the rest.
Contact us today, and let’s make magic happen.