August 2020 - Hopping Mad Design

Signs that it’s time to redesign your website

Rebranding your website is plausibly the last thing you want to do especially during COVID-19. Why spend all that effort, time and expense when business confidence, sales and inquiries are down?

Well, now is the perfect time to invest your energy and time into rebranding your website and giving it a complete overhaul, refresh and a new lease of life.

Posted by Steven Waldberg 24 August 2020

When COVID-19 settles and it will, you will be one step ahead of your competitors by having a new website.

So how can you tell that your site is old, outdated and in need of some much TLC? Following are five telltale signs that you’re current website needs to be deleted, dumped, trashed and replaced with a fab new design that you’ll love.

1. Staff photos are outdated

Old staff photos will immediately tell you’re clients that your website is old and that the owners aren’t particularly concerned about their image. Delete staff photos that are over two or three years and replace them with new up-to-date pictures. Also, make sure they are all the same style with the same background. Different forms of staff photos look odd and don’t reinforce your branding.

See the following example of updated staff photos for a Bali Real Estate Agency with a team staff photo on the home page banner. Taking better staff photos creates trust and reinforces your branding.

inline_877_https://hoppingmad.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/bali-real-estate-agency.jpg — Current staff photos add credibility and trust to your business. Photo Credit: Bali Realty website

2. The site is not mobile-friendly

Most websites are mobile-friendly and will render correctly on a mobile, making it easier for the user to use the site. But if your small business website is not rendering correctly on mobile or handheld device, it’s time to take action and do something about it. If you have a WordPress site, then it may be a quick fix. You should also note that Google will index and promote mobile-friendly websites above others that are not. So, if you rely on Google rankings and you want users to be able to browse all pages of your site quickly, then making it mobile responsive is super important.

3. Does you’re website take forever to load?

If your website takes longer than a few seconds to load, then it’s time to look at either upgrading it or giving it a complete overhaul to speed load times up. If your current site is a few years old, then it’s a good idea to get in there and look at optimising all images and pictures to speed up download times. I know this may be hard to understand for most people, but WordPress has a plugin called Smush It that you can use. Read this: https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-smushit/.

If you are still unclear, it’s probably a good idea to get your web developers or IT team to do this for you.

Long download times kill so many things about your website and user experience, including your Google rankings, that it must be a priority. You can time it yourself and see how long pages take to load. If you are sitting there waiting this is not a good sign.

inline_396_https://hoppingmad.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/slow-websites.jpg — Slow website load times kill the customer experience & can harm sales.

4. Your branding has changed.

The most important message you must keep consistent is the branding of your business. Everything must be uniform, consistent and in harmony. Business cards, signage, menus, emails signatures, even you’re website have to have consistent messaging. Many businesses ignore this, which sends a confusing message to your customer base.

If you have recently changed your logo or updated your branding make sure your website reflects this.

5. Outdated CMS

If you haven’t updated your website in a few years the chances are that your content management system is outdated. Plus you might have old plugins that are in desperate need of updating.

Outdated plugins are seriously dangerous and not only open the door to hackers but will affect the performance of the site. Most small businesses will have had their site designed and built by an agency who might be using their own CMS. If this is the case and you are still paying a monthly fee for a CMS then it’s time to overhaul your site and move it over to a more user-friendly WordPress CMS.

There are so many advantages of having a WordPress CMS that if you’re not taking advantage of this then you are simply loosing out. Read this for more insights on WordPress CMS.

6. The sites not ranking well on Google

No one can tell you exactly what Google is looking for but one thing for certain, they are not going to rank an old website that is uninformative, poorly designed with outdated content. If, like most businesses you rely on Google for leads and sales then you have to get stuck into your site and always be updating it with new graphics, information and current news. This is the best way to help improve rankings and drive new business leads.

It makes perfect sense as Google will only want to display current websites that are trustworthy with up-to-date information. So if you haven’t touched your website in years or never published a blog or news item then now is the time to do something about it.

7. You just hate the look of it

If looking at your website makes you embarrassed, or you can’t stand the sight of it, then imagine what you’re customers, think of it. Wouldn’t you love a website that you can be proud of and show your mates? Then do something about it! The site won’t change itself; you have to be proactive and get in touch with a web design agency that can craft a new, more contemporary look for you.

Note that there are lots of free websites online where you can build it yourself. We definitely suggest leaving it to experts who can customise the design based on your exact business news, look and style.

Also read: Why your website MUST NOT be a DIY project?

8. There are no ‘call to action’ buttons

How are customers going to contact you? How do they know what specials you have? What new products have you got to market and what price discounts are on offer? These are all critical call to action buttons that need to be within easy reach of customers browsing experience. If your site doesn’t have any of these, then take action on these call to actions! Get an agency that knows about user experience and high conversion landing pages to take a look at your site and redesign it.

You can see a classic example of what call to action buttons look like on our own Hopping Mad Designs home page where we encourage people to contact us. They are front and centre, highly visible and work!

inline_32_https://hoppingmad.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Screen-Shot-2020-08-25-at-9.12.27-am.png — Two visible call to action buttons on the home page banner on the Hopping Mad Designs page are great for customer conversion rates.

9. Your site is over 4 years old

We are not saying that just because your site is more than four years old that it needs a refresh. But, with advances in technologies, consumers expectations, styles and web trends plus what Google is looking for all contribute to one thing; overhauling your website will address all of these issues. Just like any consumer good, fashion or product, these get outdated and replacing these are the norm. Same with your website, it just looks old and needs some TLC.

10. There are dead links all over the site

Over time pages disappear. You may have deleted these and without even knowing some of these deleted pages may have had internal links pointing to them. For example, you might have been promoting a new service on the home page, and this service is now obsolete. So you have gone and deleted this page resulting in an obsolete link from the home page. Having too many dead links will turn customers away and can harm your Google rankings.

This article was written by Steven Walberg who is one of the marketing team of Hopping Mad Designs. He’s had years of experience in helping small businesses improve their websites performance, customer conversion rates and Google rankings.

He’s passionate about small business and has helped many Sydney businesses get more out of their online marketing.

Benefits of WordPress for Small Businesses

In today’s competitive online space, you have to build a brand for your small business which can take the shape of many forms. And the beauty is having a WordPress website makes this possible.

Many small businesses should consider blogging, content marketing, e-newsletters and website updates to keep the content of their website fresh and their website relevant.

Doing this will build the trust of your website and help with its overall online visibility.

Unfortunately, most small businesses are far too busy running the daily operations to worry about these tasks but having a website built on a WordPress platform makes these tasks easy.

Following are ten WordPress benefits for small businesses.

1.WordPress is so much more than a basic content management system.

WordPress was the first blogging platform and was created well over a decade ago to help businesses get a basic website. Many small businesses clamoured to develop a simple web landing page, add a couple of blog posts and hey presto you were online. But, WordPress has evolved so much over the years and grown to be an essential marketing platform.

You have the flexibility to add more great features like an eCommerce store, menus, maps and delivery tracking.

Anything current for your business can be integrated into your WordPress CMS. All you need to do is think about how your business has grown and what additions you need to make to your website to reflect this. And, your WordPress platform will more than likely have the plugin to help you integrate it. WordPress has every extra module you could want from starting an online business through to adding extra website security.

2. Mobile Responsive is a Must

As web designers, we make sure that every WordPress site we build is entirely mobile responsive. Responsive design means that all elements of the web page such as images, text, videos will be rearranged automatically to fit all hand help devices, mobile phones and screen sizes.

We all know that websites must fit nicely on all screens and any hurdles hindering the user’s experience will have an impact on the time they spend on the site. This means that if your website is not responsive, the chances of people buying from you are minimal.

A quick test to see if your site is responsive is to check how it looks on you’re mobile phone. If it doesn’t reduce images and text to fit into the screen, then you need to get a web design team to look into this. Most small businesses over the last couple of years have realised the importance of having a responsive site, but there are still a whole bunch of folks out there with WordPress sites that are not mobile-friendly.

In most cases, this is a quick fix, so it’s something that you can do reasonably quickly.

3. WordPress lets you update security settings

Nothing is worse than finding out you’re website has been hacked. So, when you build, you’re WordPress website, make sure that you are up to date with all the latest security plugins. One of the best functions of WordPress is it will remind you if there are security updates needed. In most cases, it’s a quick click of a button for an instant security update.

4. WordPress websites allow easy internal linking

Whenever you write a blog, post or add a new page to your site, make sure you link internally to other pages. Creating an internal link structure is significant as it directs people to pages throughout your website. You might be writing a blog post related to a specific service offering, and you would want to have an internal link to that particular service page. Internal linkings has the benefit of keeping people on your website, which may encourage them to buy or make an inquiry. Plus more time on you’re site will reduce website bounce rates which is excellent for SEO, and you’re Google rankings.

Also, read The Do’s and Dont’s of Backlinks. Tips to make Google LOVE your link profile

5. WordPress helps you reduce and optimise image sizes.

Images and pictures on your website are generally the most extensive files. They can seriously slow your website load times which in turn can increase bounce rates and customers leaving your site. Slow load times are incredibly dangerous and can not only harm your Google rankings, but it can have an impact on sales and inquiries. You want your website to be fast, snappy and load in less than two seconds. WordPress can facilitate this by compressing and reducing all image & photo files, so your site is super fast to load.

6. WordPress has a great support network.

Like most things online, you will need help and support, and this is where WordPress is far superior to other CMS platforms. You can post a question to their forum and expect to get an answer swiftly but other WordPress experts. One of the best things about WordPress for small business is that it gives you autonomy. If for any reason you are stuck and need help the forum is there to help 24/7. Have a look at the WordPress Forum here.

7. WordPress gives flexibility in design.

Most small businesses are not designers and this is why WordPress is so handy. You can either choose from a range of free pre-existing templates that can match the style of your business. Or, you can completely customise your design based on your own unique style and taste. Obviously, you will need a Sydney WordPress web design agency to do this but the options are on the table for you. And, if you need any extra plugins added to you’re websites like a shopping cart, customised blogs or extra menus your web developers can easily add this.

8. WordPress is the most common website platform.

Any web designers or developer will know WordPress and how to use it. The interface is really easy to use and most small business owners will know how to use it after a couple of hours of training. But, like most small businesses you won’t have the time to invest in this especially during COVID-19. So if you have any design or structural changes needed on the site you can get an agency to do this for you. It’s a worldwide platform and changes, amends or additions can be implemented by anyone, anywhere in the world. It means that you’re not tied in to any one particular agency.

9. WordPress works across all industries.

Travel, beauty, medical, professional, trades, start-ups, eCommerce and Governments all use WordPress websites. The platform is so dynamic and so versatile that it can be customised to suit all industries and all types of small businesses. WordPress websites are so easy to create that it’s the perfect platform for small business startups that don’t want to invest a lot of money in the beginning phase of their business. However, as the business grows the site can easily expand to accommodate any growth.

10. WordPress is 100% SEO & Google-friendly

You will find it hard to beat WordPress for small business SEO. It allows you to easily update and modify the content, titles, tags, meta descriptions and images. Plus if you install the WordPress All in One SEO plugin will even give you tips on how to improve your sites on-page SEO performance. It does the thinking for you and guides you through the process.

There are many benefits for small business web design when using a WordPress option. From easy to add plugins, a huge online community that is there to help you anytime to the flexibility in design options. Plus it’s super Google friendly. So it makes perfect economic and business sense to utilize the most powerful web platform in the world for your next website. We would love to be able to help you get your next web project off the ground and help you rank it on Google.

Beat your competition with a Hopping Mad website!

This post was created by Steven Waldberg who is one of the directors of Hopping Mad Designs. If you’re looking for a WordPress website that can rank on Google and get loads of new business inquiries, Steven can help.