In today's online landscape, a website is more than just a digital home on the world wide web. It's an opportunity for your business to connect with your ideal customers, showcase what you offer and provide an insight into what it's like to work with you. And with technology growing at such a rapid rate, your website needs to be an accurate representation of your business, keeping it up to date and relevant.
You might have started off with a templated site or something you threw together as a proof of concept to get your business off the ground - we all need to start somewhere! But now is a perfect time to reassess your digital domain and if your website is working for you, not against you. As your site is one of the most important sources you have for attracting and converting customers, I'm walking you through six common signs that your website is overdue for a makeover.
HOT TIP: While you're going through this article, open up your Google Analytics to dive deeper into some of these metrics.
Sign #1: Your bounce rate is high
This means people arrive on your site and leave without checking you out. This could be because of a few reasons: your site is too slow to load, it's not clear right away what you offer or it wasn't enough to draw in your audience.
As a rule of thumb, a bounce rate in the range of 26 to 40 percent is great. Average would be 41 to 55 percent and 56 to 70 percent is higher than average. If you're in this higher bounce rate, fear not - there's other metric to look into as it depends on the type of website you have.
HOT TIP: One of the most overlooked aspects of a website is ensuring your images are the correct dimensions/file size for your website BEFORE you upload them. This helps with load times and optimising the images themselves. We love tinypng.com to help compress images.
Sign #2: Your online customer journey isn’t clear
When we're looking at a customer's journey for a website, you want to make sure you have a clear flow from the moment a user lands on your site, all the way to the footer. Having a clear user journey is essential in a converting website experience. The best websites focus on cultivating an easy, nurturing user experience that isn't cluttered with information and doesn't feel overwhelmed. Without a clear user journey, customers aren't encouraged to stay on your site, leading to that high bounce rate.
When we're designing a website, we like to think of each scroll as a 'section' and breakdown the journey that way. We focus on the essential information that needs to be conveyed on the homepage and break it down with different font styles and images. We want to ensure the information can be digested easily and it organically leads from one section to the next, without being disconnected.
Sign #3: Your conversions have flat-lined
If your website isn’t generating any leads or sales, it's time to take a deeper look at what might be happening. While your website isn't the ONLY vehicle for your business, it's a strong reinforcer to provide trust and credibility to your potential customers. Take a look at your site and put yourself in the position of your ideal customer - would you buy from you? Does your site accurately represent your services and offerings that would entice you to buy? Again, technology is moving at such a rapid rate, so what might have served you well 2 years ago might just not be cutting it anymore.
Sign #4: Your website doesn’t feel like your brand
This one is a biggy. If you’ve rebranded in the last few years, or if you’ve been slowly transforming and evolving your brand (which happens naturally over the course of time), then it’s likely that your website doesn’t feel like an extension of your brand anymore.
Your brand should offer a seamless experience across all platforms. No matter where and how your ideal customer visits you, they should know, instantly, that they’re hanging out with YOUR business.
If your website doesn’t feel like the rest of your brand, then it probably needs a makeover.
Sign #5: It’s been between three to five years since you built your website
Again, technology evolves, styles change and you might have developed new offerings or extended your target market range. These can be factors that impact where you are today to where you were three to five years ago in your business and website. Looking at setting your business up for the next few years ahead, a redesign could help you establish your next chapter that feels authentic to you and your growth ahead.
Sign #6: You hesitate to give out your website deets
We've all been there! But the moment you hesitate on driving traffic to your website is the moment you need to highly consider a website makeover.
You should feel unerringly proud of your website and WANT people to see what you offer and who you are as a brand. And anything less than that is a strong indication of what's ahead for you.
We've seen a LOT of rebrands and website redesigns this year as many of our clients have experienced significant growth over the last few years and their sites no longer reflected their business. And while no two websites are ever the same, we take the same approach in the beginning to understand their unique goals and objectives to ensure we create a strong customer journey that aligns with their vision. Above all, we've set them up for success to harness the next few years ahead with confidence and conversion to continue their growth.
If this sounds like something you're in the market for, and can relate to any of these six signs, we'd love to chat.
