Your website is the backbone of business and your online presence. The same way you perform your day-to-day activities to keep your business running optimally, your website also needs to be taken care of, so as to keep your business growing and up to date.
If you haven’t redesigned your website in the last 12 months or have been considering it, then you must read this article. Many may not think its necessary to redesign their websites but ultimately it could cost you in the long run.
While doing research, many people look at your company’s website and check out your online presence. The easy to navigate and high-speed loading website rules the internet. Before calling you, your clients may fill your ‘contact us’ form, to initiate the conversation. The real trick is to ensure that their journey is worth taking or you may be missing out on quite a few clients.
Let’s find out why one should redesign the website?
1) Keeping Your information Up-To-Date
Your website might contain the old information like postal address, email, phone number, etc. Updating to reflect the current working one, is very important as it’s the only way for your audience to reach out to you. Now, you may think, you have the same email working, but the phone number or address has been changed, so, people can reach out to you via email. But, the behavior of everyone is not the same. Maybe they want to reach out to you through a phone call only or visit your establishment. I cannot think of a businessman or woman that wants to lose out on landing a client.
Updating the new products and services on your website can inform your audience what you are selling. It tells them, what’s new and which deals you are offering at the moment. Keeping your information current and up-to-date should become a MUST – not just another thing to do.
2) Latest Web Standards
A few years ago, mobile phones were not as popular as they are today. With that said, desktop users have seen a drop and people are accessing the internet via smartphones, with mobile phones taking up to 70% share of online activity. So, nowadays, the websites that are accessible by the mobile devices are considered as good websites. Unfortunately, if your website has not been updated for a few years, it will look outdated and dull on new modern devices. More importantly your website might not render efficiently on mobile phones and you could be losing 60% of today’s modern user – the mobile user.
Related : Benefits of having a website for small business in SA
Responsive Web Design GIF from Responsivewebdesign GIFs
3) Easy NavigationÂ
Does your website show your users what they want to see?
How often do you check the navigation process of your website? Once in a while? Check out the landing pages, the redirecting links, images with the blogs, everything should be at the right place. Give your competitors a look and check the people from your niche, what they are doing, what features they are including in their sites, find out what people like about their website. Try to modify accordingly, and make sure you mould your website with the latest features as your business grows.
4) Reflect your brand
Your website should represent your brand as well as carry the message your business stands for. It makes you professional and more credible on the internet. Website captures more eyeballs and has the ability to create your brand image. All the startups, entrepreneurs, small and midsize businesses design their website in such a way, so that, it stands out from their competitors’ crowd.
5) Modern Design Style
The new website design trends come out yearly, so, if you haven’t updated your website from the last 24 months then you might fall under the outdated category. You can see people using 3 dimension images, animated videos,etc. on their website. This makes the site more interactive one. For e.g., for a coffee manufacturing company, the old trend was to show just some coffee beans and a cup. But now, they show you the short video of how you can make the coffee (you could almost smell the coffee through the video). Such small changes appeals more audience to visit your website.
If your site looks anything like this, then I suggest you make the change!
6) Optimize it
Whether you considering to have your website re-designed or not, ensuring that your website is optimised for search engines is a MUST. If your site is not optimised for search engines (like Google) then how do you expect people to find it? So, you need to redesign your site in an SEO friendly way by utilizing custom page URLs, H1, H2, H3 tags, page titles, so as to make a website more flexible and accommodate easily to optimize content. Make sure your site is running fast (test your website page speed right here for free) and ensure that your website can be found on search engines. (If you want to get a free SEO audit on your site click here)
Key tip: Read this if you want to know more about SEO. Related : What is SEO and Why it matters? Check the Trends that will Matter
Do you really need to redesign?
A piece of good advice would be to redesign it, if, you haven’t from last 2-3 years. This makes your website more fresh and user-friendly which ultimately drives traffic and generates leads for you. If you are not tech-savvy or want to have it designed then contact a website design agency.
19 Digital is a Digital Marketing & Website Design Agency based in Stellenbosch and we specialise in helping South African businesses go online and grow online. If you are looking to take your business online and grow online then contact us today.