There surely is no need to redesign your entire company website every 6 months, but leaving it to the other extreme by not freshening it at all isn’t great for your current or potential users. Technologies and styles become outdated quicker than before and it’s optimal to ensure the website stays functional, user-friendly, and up to par with your competitors. So when is it the best time to consider redesigning and revamping your website? Let’s go over a few of our recommendations.
1. Room for Expansion
At the start of any business, companies opt for free website builders like Squarespace or Wix to fulfill their basic needs without spending a significant amount of money on building a website. However, over time, your business will start to expand and outgrow the features of this foundational website. Perhaps you’ll want to add more visual elements or even an online shopping feature. Trust your gut instinct if you feel you’ve outgrown your starter website and start investing in necessities for your business.
2. After Rebranding
If you’ve launched a rebranding campaign for the company or are in the midst of it, then your website should reflect these changes as well. Rebranding can happen in a number of ways: from a logo change to a new line of services or products, and changes in the tone of voice or company vision. While you are in the rebranding process, it’s best to think about how this will impact the company website and what corresponding changes will be required. That way, when you launch your fresh, new image, your website will also be up to par.
Digi-Tip: Keep in mind that a full website refresh will take a significant amount of time to carry out. Work on it simultaneously with your marketing and design projects in case of a full rebranding.
3. When It Feels Outdated
One of the easiest tell-tale signs to refresh your website is when it becomes outdated in terms of style or technologies. But how do you know if the website is outdated or not? Here a few signs that can hint at your website being outdated:
It’s slow – Without consistent maintenance, the loading speed of your webpages may decrease, resulting in an irritating experience for visitors, who may decide to stop visiting your website altogether. This may be a sign of bad hosting on your server, insufficient optimization of visual content, or unclean code which will require your attention to put back on track. Research conducted by Google found that “53% of mobile website visitors will leave if a webpage doesn’t load within four seconds”.
You’re losing web traffic – If you’ve been noticing a steady decline in web traffic over a significant period of time (6-12 months) then it could mean your website isn’t attracting viewers like it used to. This could also be a result of inefficient, or lack of, marketing and advertising. However, a careful review of your website will help you determine the deep-rooted reasons you’re losing traffic. It may not be optimized for search engines well enough or clients simply don’t have a pleasant user experience anymore. It’s best to go over all of the possibilities.
Digi-tip: Assessing analytics like your ‘bounce rate’, ‘average visitor time’, and ‘conversion rate’ can give significant insight about how well your website is performing.
Outdated design – you may think that design and style is a matter of personal preference, but outdated website design is more objective than you’d think! Gone are the days where websites are a single white page with simple buttons and a few images. Visitors are not only looking for a fast and accessible website, but they care for the aesthetics as well. Fresh, new websites take all the details into consideration, such as hovering over images, including animations, transitions between sections of the website, and so on. You don’t need to overdo it and have a flashy website, though.
Not mobile optimized – According to data gathered by Inc.: “51.3% of worldwide users access the web via mobile devices”. It’s no surprise that businesses are starting to think about the mobile user in mind before the web user. If your current website doesn’t translate well on mobile devices, it’s time to either make it more mobile-friendly or redesign your website completely with the mobile version in mind.
4. New Year, New Website
It may sound cheesy at first, but the end of the year or the start of the new one is a great opportunity to freshen up the company website. There is a great window of opportunity after Christmas until mid-January to dedicate your efforts to update the website. Online sales typically decrease after Christmas since everyone has done their holiday shopping and is taking the time to share their new purchases on social media. So, chances are that 5.traffic flow to your website will be sparcer than usual. It’s an optimal time to focus on making the necessary changes to the website, whether a full makeover or minor adjustments, so your users are in for a pleasant surprise at the start of the new year.
5. Watch Your Competitors
Last, but not least, keep an eye out for what your competitors are doing with their company websites. While the grass may seem greener on the other side, this isn’t done for the purpose of copying, but rather becoming aware of what changes your website needs. If a significant amount of your competitors are frontrunners and potentially attracting your target audience, then it could mean that their website has certain elements and features that are missing in yours. These may be even the slightest things, such as having a slower loading time than theirs.
Freshening up your company website comes in all shapes and sizes. You may need minor adjustments, performance-based changes, or a full rebranding. Whatever the case, it’s optimal to notice the tell-tale signs that these changes are necessary and begin to act on them. At the end of the day, there never is a bad time to opt for a website refresh! It’s better to do frequent tweaking than leave it unattended.
Digilite’s web developers are prepared to not only take care of your website refresh but even build a new one from scratch if needed. Contact us today for more details.