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7 Signs It's Time To Redesign Your Web Site
Many business owners have found the process of creating their first web site to be a stressful undertaking. Once their site was finished and went live, they didn't want to deal with their site again anytime soon.
However, the web sites that are the most beneficial to both your customers and your business aren't static. At some point you'll need to make some changes to your web site. Most of these changes can be accomplished with simple maintenance, and by making updates to the content of your site. But if your site is particularly outdated, or if it's not working well for you, it's probably time to consider a complete site redesign.
Some signs that it's time to redesign your site include:
1. Your Business Has Changed or Grown
If you've only had a few small changes, you might be able to just update your current web site. But, if you've changed your business direction, decided to provide new products or services, or if your company has grown significantly, it will be beneficial to redesign your site. Consider how the changes to your business should be reflected in the structure, design and strategy behind your web site.
2. Your Site Looks Like It Was Designed in 1995
Some signs of an outdated web site include: chunky, slow-loading graphics, old-style "frames", where the site is divided up into panes that load separately, animated cartoon clip-art throughout the site, and text created as images instead of in HTML. Having any of these on your site could reflect poorly on your business, making you look 'behind the times'.
3. The Information on Your Site Isn't User-Friendly
If you cringe when you read your site text, or if you regularly get questíons on it from visitors, re-structuring or rewriting the copy can help to fix these problems. If you've been adding to your site over time and the navigation has become unwieldy or confusing, it may be time to restructure the navigation. You want visitors to be able to easily find their way around your site and to be able to access all the information you have within a few clicks. Reorganizing the layout of your site to make that possible will make your visitors' experience on your site more enjoyable.
4. You Apologize for the Site When Referencing It or Handing Out Your Business Cards
Your site should be a source of pride. It should provide your clients and prospects an easy way to get a lot of information about your business. And, if you have to apologize for out-of-date information, broken images, poor design, difficult navigation or anything else on your site, it makes you look unprepared and unprofessional. Make sure your site is in top shape so you're giving the impression of your business that you want to be giving.
5. You're Not Getting Good Results in the Search Engines
Poor rankings in search engines can be a result of not optimizing your site well. Poor search engine ranking can also be a result of bad design choices or coding on your site. Make sure that your site isn't designed using frames and that the text is coded in HTML. Flash sites are also more difficult to optimize for search engines.
6. It's Not Bringing in Inquiries and Helping You to Make Sales
Many web sites have been designed as an online brochure. This is fine when you're starting out with a web site, many businesses start their online presense this way. But, when you're ready, a web site can do a lot more than just impersonate your brochure - it can help you close sales, bring in new prospects and make your business easier to run. Consider including the following when you redesign your site:
- Calls to action to encourage your visitors to take specific actions - like purchasing something, contacting you, or signing up for a newsletter.
- Forms, scripts, or programs to make your business easier - like contact forms, project estimating tools, and an autoresponder email series that can help you keep in touch with your clients and prospects. Including a shopping cart or Paypal buttons on your site can also help you to make more sales without any additional work.
- Downloadable information packets, articles, questionnaires and white papers can answer a prospect's questíons about your products or services and help them to move closer to buying. And, if you require the prospect to enter their email address or other contact information, it can help you to grow your prospect líst as well.
These are just a few of the functions that your site can perform for your business. To get ideas for other ways that your site can help you improve your business, look at the other sites that you visit and note the functions they perform.
7. Your Site is Costing You a Fortune to Update
If you're racking up huge bills because of changes and still have a lot to go, it might be time to consider a whole site redesign. Make a list of everything that you want to do on your site and consult a web designer about redesigning your site with those changes in mind. Often, if you have extensive changes to make to your site, it can be less expensive to just start over.
If your site has any of the problems mentioned here, it's time to consider redesigning. The steps needed to update and revise will differ depending on the issues that your site has - you may not have to start from scratch. But, do make sure that you address all of the problems that your site has so that it is reflects your business as it is today!