There are many design elements working behind a neatly designed website but these elements can lose their charm over time. Your website starts to look outdated, disformatted, includes broken links (which take you nowhere) etc. But on the other hand there is no limit to modification and redesign, you might go on designing forever still never satisfied. My Suggestion would be If you at any point of time during redesigning feel that the original design was better, Just stop thinking and restore your website (keep the backup of your website handy before you start redesigning your masterpiece).
These days, your audience’s first impression of your business is based almost exclusively on your website … so redesigning your website isn’t a task to take lightly. It requires a good deal of thought, time, and potentially money, but the upside can be enormous.
Here are a few points to read through before you go on redesigning your website.
1. Your current website’s design is outdated.
This is the most common reason, and users know in an instant if a website is up to date or not, simply by the way that it looks. Websites with fuzzy or broken images, hard to read text and outdated layout are often skipped right over as surfers of the web often automatically assume that the website is years old and will have outdated content or nothing valuable at all to offer. Think about it in real-life terms. If you see a Old building on the street, with its sign barely hanging on and shady windows, you will most likely ignore it, let alone attempt to go inside?
2. People aren’t sticking around.
While a design can be up to date aesthetically, it may be lacking in functionality, and so users are getting confused when they first get to the site and subsequently are turned away. Your site needs to immediately demonstrate its purpose. Internet users are impatient and don’t like to search around on pages for what they’re looking for, they want it presented clearly and concisely the moment they arrive. You should know what your users want, and you should direct them to that goal. If you’re selling Indian products, don’t fill your home page with links to the history of the Indian government just because it’s fun: focus your users on the task at hand and they’ll reward you with performing those tasks.
3. Not enough traffic.
Of course, you may find yourself with a nice looking site, and it may even be functional, but you’re just not seeing any traffic. If your site has been around for awhile, a lack of traffic indicates that you’re not doing well with the search engines. This could be caused by the fact that your site wasn’t built correctly, or that you need to work on the content, Keywords, Sitemaps, Images etc.
Feel the Need to Redesign your Beautifully designed Website? Not Sure Yet? This will do the Job
1. You aren’t getting the results you want.
Is your website gorgeous, functional, and pixel-perfect? Awesome! But if you still aren’t getting the results you want, it’s just useless web real estate. Your website exists to build your customer base, and your data should show you’re trending toward that goal.
If you aren’t happy with your results, it’s time to redesign. Examining your site’s conversion rates visitor-to-lead and lead-to-customer typically being the most important can provide you with a clear idea of what needs to be adjusted on it. Here are a few questions you should ask yourself to guide your redesign process:
- Does your call-to-action convert visitors into leads and customers?
- Do your landing pages inspire people to learn more by digging deeper, or are they simply aesthetically pleasing pages that convey little value?
- Is your site too text-heavy or riddled with corporate speak?
- Does your site’s look and feel match your company’s voice and speak directly to your target audience?
2. The purpose of your site has changed.
If you’re like most companies, your marketing strategy is fairly fluid and reflects changes in results. While you clearly don’t need to do a full site redesign each time you adjust your marketing goals, it’s a good idea to check every so often to be sure your site is still aligned with your newest marketing plans. Ask yourself questions like:
- How often do you modify your marketing strategy?
- Do marketing strategy updates affect your conversion funnel?
Of course, if you haven’t altered your marketing strategy in a while, it might not be your website that is the problem.
If your site’s purpose has changed, update its layout to be more in line with your goals. For instance, if you’re new goals are now to provide more lead generation content (perhaps some “how-to” blog posts and ebooks), ensure you include CTAs on your homepage and other popular webpages.
3. Your website just doesn’t work.
This might seem obvious, but you’ve probably stumbled on websites every now and then that are dysfunctional. Your site might not be on that level … but it might still not be as user-friendly as it could be. The truth is there can be elements of a site that aren’t effective and you may not realize they’re making your site less effective.
Functionality should be a paramount focus for you- if it’s not, your traffic an efforts could suffer. How you and others you ask to test the site answer these questions might point you in the clear direction of a redesign:
- Can a visitor readily find the most basic things on your site, such as contact information?
- Is your site navigation confusing?
- Is your important content hidden?
- Are your product and service offers completely up-to-date?
4. You have an effective web design strategy.
If you’re already considering a redesign, it’s likely you’ve learned a fair amount along the way about what doesn’t work well in the design process. Instead of having one massive goal of a website redesign, take an iterative approach. Having this approach can help you use the information you’ve gathered about what works on your current site and plan accordingly. In other words, you’ll be able to tell if your current user’s needs are being met.
You probably don’t even notice the small changes some of the sites you visit frequently make on a regular basis, major brands have entire teams dedicated to iterating on every little detail. Since you may not have as many resources as these big brands, be sure every change you make has a clear purpose and solves a problem. Questions like these can help you decide if you have a clear purpose and problem to solve:
- Will customers be upset by a major portion?
- Do you have all the answers you need from your customers to make a significant change?
- Can you reduce costs by making small changes to a major feature?
5. Your site isn’t responsive.
More than 17% of all web traffic comes from mobile devices. If your site isn’t responsive yet (some content management systems like Wordpress are responsive out-of-the-box), the chances you’re losing leads and maybe even customers are high. Mobile users have made it clear they want to have a great UX on their devices, the same ones they have on desktops. so Responsive Web Design should be a chief priority for your company if it hasn’t already been made one.
6. Your competitors changed their site.
Obviously, you don’t need to give your site an overhaul every time one of your competitors changes theirs. Having said that, if they make changes that improve their rankings substantially and end up pushing you down in searches, it’s likely time to make some alterations to your site.
If you spend some time on a competitor’s site and realize it could meet your goals far better than your own site does, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get busy. Maintaining an edge in search shouldn’t be your only goal, but if you’re not near the top of SERPs because competing business is keeping you from there, analyze what SEO adjustments you can make to your site.
Identifying with one of the 9 scenarios above shouldn’t cause you to go into panic mode and dive deep into a redesign, but realizing a few hit close to home might mean it’s time to get cracking on a new design.
Your website is meant to bring you business. If it’s not doing that, it’s time to determine why not and make necessary changes.
Do you think you’re in need of a website redesign?