5 Signs That It’s Time to Refresh Your Website: Strategy Guide

Your website is your online home. It’s a place that you should be proud to send people to, and it represents your business in the digital world. Yet many business owners overlook their website until they have reason to worry about it: when visitors are leaving or income starts decreasing. But there are 5 signs that you need to know that tell when you are ready for a website design refresh!

There are some obvious ones like…

• You have been using the same website design for more than three years. (Your business has evolved, and your website should reflect that).
• Your website is not optimized for mobile devices (Smartphones, Tablets)… Yikes!
• Visitors to your site are leaving before they reach the landing page because of a poor user experience.

Let’s start right here:

1. Your site is out of date.

Truth time: When was the last real update you did to your website? I don’t mean just changing colors here and there, updating images, galleries (although those count a lot).

I mean evaluating your current brand vision, growth goals, and messaging to see that this is reflected (and aligned) with your website. After all, this is your most important marketing tool.

It sets the tone for your company, it’s the online face of who you are.

What I’ve seen in my years as a website designer, is that most small business websites should be refreshed about every 18 months to stay relevant and connected to what your audience needs in order to fulfill your marketing and conversion goals.

But, I will say, evaluating your copy along with your imagery every quarter is a very good idea. Note that I said “evaluate” not “change”, because you don’t fix what’s not broken so you first need to analyze and if it needs it, then fix.

It is imperative that you keep a check on the pulse of your website and how it’s communicating with your audience.

If you’ve been sitting on the same website design for years, and it’s just not doing what you need anymore – or maybe never was in the first place! It might be more than the perfect time to refresh and redesign that engine so it can run as efficiently as possible with more functionality.

Trust me on this one. It may seem like a daunting task, but you’ll be grateful that you did it.

2. You’re not getting enough traffic

Search engines do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to finding your website. It’s an unfortunate reality that you need search engine optimization (SEO) in order for people to find and view your site, but without sufficient SEO there is no way they will come across what you have, no matter how good it is.

And I know that you’re an absolute boss, so you definitely want people to find your site, right?

First, track your metrics

I cannot stress this enough: You need to track your Google Analytics and Google Search Console metrics so that you know where you stand in terms of your website’s performance. You’ll want to check out the following metrics:

• Visits per month.
• Visitors’ page paths (plus, what they do on the site, see what pages they visit before/after.)
• Bounce rate (%) — The lower these numbers get, the better. The fewer people that come across and leave your site, that’s what you want!

Second, tweak based on your analytic insights

Instead of just thinking “oh I just don’t get enough traffic, I need paid ads” or anything else that “helps” boost your views, analyze your site because if not, you could be making a very costly mistake by boosting content that is not optimized to bring you qualified leads.

Read that again:

You don’t want to boost a site with poorly done content.

In the end, your on-page SEO is going to help you get more traffic that’s going to stay and be more qualified.

Bonus tip — Google Page Speed Tool: this is just one tool that can tell you how fast your page loads on a mobile device and desktop, which will help boost your SEO efforts! No one stays on a page that loads too slow.

3. Your website isn’t mobile-friendly 

Oh boy, this is a big one: Your website is not optimized for mobile devices. And no, just shrinking everything to fit and somewhat putting it in a single column is not mobile-friendly.

Most of us navigate the web with our phones, so your mobile design should be as captivating and impressive as your desktop side so that your website visitors can get the best experience from your content, products, and services.

It’s time that your site be ready for these users by being responsive (aka have a mobile version) so that it can work on whatever screen they use to visit you.

I’m pretty confident when I say: mobile design is not optional, and it should never be an afterthought.

This is a big one for determining if it’s time to refresh your site, not having a mobile-friendly site can be detrimental to your online reputation and overall sales performance. Oh yes, I said sales, your online home is your biggest seller! It’s up 24/7 answering questions and helping you promote your brand.

Your website will also be more likely to rank higher in search engine results pages, which means you’ll get found by your target audience faster and easier with optimized SEO keywords on the page when they search on your phones or tablets.

4. You don’t have a blog 

You’re not alone if you don’t have a blog. A lot of people are starting to realize the power and benefits of content marketing, but many still aren’t sure where to start. That’s why it might be time for your site design refresh!

Not everyone has a blog, and not all who do keep it up-to-date which is totally understandable because busy schedules are tough!

But content marketing is such an organic way to share your expertise, get more leads, and show off your work. I know how difficult having a great looking site can be on top of all the other things you have going on in life (totally been there!), but having it professionally designed as part of your whole site can open big doors.

What’s not to love about organic traffic?

5. You want to increase customer conversion rates

Ah conversion, what a nice word, but really it means:

• Increase customer retention

• Get more sales

• Get higher quality leads

The first step in improving conversion rates is to make a website design that meets the needs of your potential customers.

In other words, you need to create a site design that solves their problems or provides them with something they want.

It goes back into keeping an eye on your analytics so you can see which pages are working for you and which ones aren’t. If the design isn’t generating sales, then it’s time to do something new!

This goes beyond just making it prettier, this is about strategic design so that it helps you truly serve your clients while increasing your profit and revenue.

6. It’s time for an update!

Did you nod your head more than once, it’s definitely time for a refresh.

So in a nutshell, website design is everything. It’s what gets people to come back and turn into customers. And if you’re not happy with your current site or sales are decreasing, then it might be time for an overhaul!

Not gonna lie, most of my clients come to me because they have been doing really well in business but their sites are looking dated and not working for them anymore.

I worked with a wonderful female founder who was looking for someone who could update it but also help with the design strategy so that when she updates it in the future, she can do so confidently knowing what is happening on every page. That is exactly what I advocate because as strange as it sounds, not everyone needs a website. If it’s going to be just an expensive brochure online instead of your hard-working selling asset, then just forget about it.

When we work together, we’re going to get started by talking about your goals – why you want a new website in the first place. I’ll strategize how best to approach updating your site so that you understand everything even if you want or need to handle most of it yourself later on.

To get more information on how we can help refresh your website today contact us here.