Reasons why you need to think about a website overhaul
Your website has flash animation.
Flash banner and flash welcome intros were really popular 10 years ago. I remember the client’s used to love all those flashy images coming in and out on the home page. How times have changed. Firstly, most browsers do not read flash and secondly nor does Google. I will add to this that most people who are browsing on their hand held’s will not tolerate any type of flash.
If you want to have movement on your website and at the same time be Google compliant, think HTML 5. You get the wow factor as well as the rankings.
Have you forgotten about social media?
Social media is a must-have and if your website predates more than 5 years ago, chances are that it does not have any social media links. People like to learn more about you and your business. It’s just the way things are these days and social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram are perfect platforms to satisfy this desire for more information. Make sure your web developer has included your social media links on all pages of your site. A point to note here is that you must be active with your posts, tweets and blogs – no point in having links there if you are not active.
Responsive web design
I have written about this more than once and for those that do not have a mobile responsive website, then this article is going to make an impact. Why? Because you should act on this point immediately. If you do not have a mobile website then you are:
- going to lose customers who do not want to squint if they are viewing a desktop version of your site on their iPhone.
- You are going to not rank as high on the search engines – Google places a higher priority on ranking mobile site.
- You are helping your competition.
- Simply put, getting a responsive website is a no-brainer and if there is 1 thing you should take away from this blog is that you need your website to be mobile.
Long load times and hard to navigate
These are really 2 separate points but I will group them as 1 under the heading of ‘user experience’. That is, what type of experience is the user having when they land on your website. Are they bouncing off it straight away without looking deeper, or are they actually buying from you and engaging with the site? If your bounce rates are high (you can check this in Analytics), then you need to look at your customer experience. Obviously, they do not like what they see – hence they are exiting the website. Ideally, you need to provide your customers with the best user experience if you expect them to buy from you. Just like any retail shop or restaurant if the patrons don’t like the atmosphere they will never come back. The same goes for your website. Quick load times and a great looking website will drastically improve the user experience.
Your website is not optimised for SEO
An extremely common problem with old websites is that they were probably done by a design agency that had no clue about SEO. Also, Google has made that many algorithmic changes that old websites would be non-compliant. This would affect rankings and overall sales and inquiry rates. Let’s say your website was built 8 years ago with flash animation, little content and little attention paid to ‘on page’ compliance ‘must haves’ like titles. This would have an enormous negative impact on SEO and this is probably why your Google rankings are terrible. Simply put – if you want to get a better online ranking, get a website overhaul.
Also read: Can bad web design harm your SEO efforts?
You have thin content on your pages
Boring uninformative websites are going to kill your conversion rates and your lead generation. Websites should be used as a marketing tool and if you are not providing your customers with the information they need, then they will look elsewhere. Add content, keep your customers informed and make sure that your new website has an easy to use WordPress CMS to allow you to get in there and do this.
Proprietary, outdated CMS systems
This is a huge problem and afflicts many businesses that have decided to use a web agency and in turn, have been stuck using their CMS. The issue here is that some CMS systems are very cumbersome, hard to use and make life really difficult for you. By this I mean, any changes you need to make are an absolute nightmare – you have to keep on going back to your web developer for every minute change. This is costly and will waste a lot of your time. Make sure your new website has an open-source CMS like; WordPress, Drupal, Joomla or Magento. Believe me, when I tell you this, moving forward life will be so much easier if your website is built on an open-source CMS.
It is off-brand? What does it say about your business? Does your website make you cringe?
Your business has evolved, moved on and changed. You have taken it in a different direction, added new staff, implemented new products and overall your model has changed. The question here is; has your website changed as well? Does it clearly reflect your personality, brand and ethos? What does your current website tell your customers about you and your business? Does it reflect poorly?
If so, then it’s time to pick up the phone and get in touch with a web design or digital marketing agency that can address all of these issues. Luckily at hopping mad designs, we can look at your website, branding as well as SEO as an entire project and tie them together nicely.
If you are sick and tired of looking at your old, non-performing website – please call us here at Hopping Mad Designs on 02 9360 8514. We will turn things around for you very quickly.