How to know when to redesign your website

Everyone knows first impressions count. When it comes to websites this is even more important. It takes only a few seconds for your visitor to form an opinion and if they don’t like what they see, they leave, possibly never to return. That’s why it’s important to keep updating your website and keep things fresh. But how do you know when to redesign your website? Here are few suggestions, that might trigger that…

Legislation & search engine algorithm changes

You don’t always  have to follow the trends in the latest website design (although your website will start to look outdated), but you should take seriously other changes that impact on your online presence and marketing.

For starters, your website should be mobile by now and have a responsive design. Ideally this should be done as one website and not as 3 different versions of your website for desktop, mobile or tablet. Although some people still resist this change, it’s beneficial in the long run. Google will carry on pushing your ranking down and if your website relies on organic search that’s a good enough reason to switch to a mobile friendly website.

For most websites this is as simple as swapping to a new theme and tweaking a little content, spacing and photo sizes.

Your business focus changes and you need to attract a different type of customer

This is always a good enough reason in itself to redesign your website. If your business is solely based online, your website can literately make or break your business. If you have a website that has clashing type fonts, mismatched graphics, poor quality content and unreadable text, you could provide the best services in the world, but people probably won’t get past the home page.

[bctt tweet=”How to tell when you should redesign your #website #seo” username=”magdamarsden”]

You need to add a new website functionality

This one is an obvious one and most smaller updates can be done while your website design stays the same. For instance this could include adding a newsletter sign up box, live chat, social share buttons or something similar like this.

But if you are thinking of adding a major feature, such as upgrading from a basic portfolio website (5 pages or so) to a fully fledged e-commerce website, you might need to consider whether the system, theme or website provider is the right solution for your next venture. Even if it is, then you should consider how integrating an e-commerce will effect the layout of the website, home page or links to different pages. You might also need to add new pages, such as Terms & Conditions, Delivery Information or other relevant information for your business.

Your website design is outdated and might need freshening up

Like in fashion, every season and every year seems to bring something new in website design. By now, you should probably lose features such as automated music videos or background music, flash animations, automated or fast photo carousels, side column on main pages (unless you perhaps have a magazine style website or business), cheesy stock photos, too small photos or dark background with light font.

Website design can really change the way people view your business. Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t really consider it’s important enough, perhaps because it looks complicated.  Good web design is an essential element to your success when you are optimising your website for search engines. (I thought this was so important that I dedicated the whole first module of my practical SEO course to this and I’m not even a web designer!)

If you want to carry on talking more websites, online marketing and practical business running, why not pop in to my free facebook group which is full of smart business owners with amazing skills and knowledge. You are always welcome to ask me any questions directly there.

And as ever, do leave me a comment, I’d love to know what you think.

Until next time

Magdalena