As the small business owner, you spend a lot of time thinking about how you can make your business more effective. One of the easiest ways to do this is to make sure that your website is always working hard for you.
With website design and development evolving so quickly along with peoples' online habits, your website isn’t something that can stand still. If you don’t measure its effectiveness, you’ll reach a point where your returns start to dwindle and you’ll likely need a new website.
Here are some big signs you new a new website, and why investing in a new website is the first step towards getting serious about your digital marketing strategy.
1. You don’t have a website
Although most businesses have a website these days, there are still a lot that don’t. If you don’t have a website for your business it could be impeding your business growth and is one of the biggest signs you need a new website.
There are plenty of things you need to consider when it comes to your first website. But, what’s really important is you get one that represents your business well, and helps people verify that you are a real, authentic, and trustworthy business.
With a good website, you can provide online evidence that you are who you say you are, and then you can think about business blogging to grow your authority, and using your site to help grow your business over time.
2. Slow page load speeds
Page loading times have never been more important. Older websites are much more likely to be slow loading, sometimes because they've got a bit bloated over time with additional plugins and assets, and often just because they weren't built with speed in mind.
Today, people are more impatient than ever and expect to be able to access information instantly, whether they are connected to wi-fi or not, or if they are on a laptop or a mobile phone. They won’t hang around for those cool graphics to load or, worse yet, interrupt the reader when those images finally do decide to pop up and rearrange your text.
Remember page speed isn't just about user experience any more - it's also about SEO. Google now takes this into account when ranking your site against competitors, so obtaining fast load times is critical.
If your website is extremely slow, with the majority of your pages taking longer than 3 seconds to load, then now is the right time to urgently think about a new website, making speed one of your main key performance indicators.
Once you’ve got a fast-loading website, you’ll retain visitors, create a much better user-experience and make visitors more likely to become your customer rather than a competitor’s.
3. Your website is not mobile-friendly or responsive
If your current website is not responsive/mobile friendly then you definitely need a new one. Right now!
Almost half of all website traffic comes from mobile devices and Google is now basing its rankings on the mobile version of a website instead of the desktop version, so it's crucial to give your customers an excellent mobile experience on your website.
If mobile phone users have a bad experience because your website takes too long to load and/or is inflexible, meaning they have to zoom in and do lengthy scrolling, they will simply look elsewhere and take their custom to your competitors.
If you have a separate mobile website or a site that doesn't use a responsive design, it makes more sense to build a new site from scratch using a mobile-first approach rather than trying to retrofit it with mobile-friendly elements. Mobile responsive websites make for efficient maintenance because you only have one website to maintain rather than making an additional mobile application.
Also, your brand’s reputation could take a hit if you don’t have a mobile-friendly website. When a website doesn’t function well on mobile devices, 48% of users feel like the company does not care about them or their business.
4. Things don't work properly
A bug on a website can manifest in many different ways. It might be as simple as the form fields on your contact form not lining up, which doesn’t look great, but doesn’t impact you receiving contact form submissions.
However, it could be as serious as your contact form not working at all, your phone number not being tap-able to initiate a phone call on a mobile device, or your main navigation not displaying properly on a specific make of tablet.
Functionality issues like this can be caused by outdated technologies, incompatible technologies, lack of maintenance, server issues, design issues, security issues or malware, and more.
A buggy website is a definite sign you urgently need to invest in a new website. It not only looks unprofessional, but it also might make parts of your website unusable on certain devices. This is a surefire way to push potential customers to your competitors.
5. Confusing website navigation
A big part of a good user experience is making sure your website is easy to use and navigate. Your website navigation should help people find what they're looking for as quickly and easily as possible.
If your website navigation is confusing, difficult, too small, or too big, it’s going to cause friction and frustrate potential customers, causing them to leave your site and be less willing to purchase from you or work with you. If your website is that difficult to use, what is actually working with you going to be like?
It's a particular problem for clients who've used a template or theme for their website, or who have gone for a package option. Bespoke websites tend to have more of a focus on UX, as that forms the backbone of the sitemap and website structure.
When prospects visit your website, they should intuitively understand where to click, how to learn about your products or services, and seamlessly and quickly navigate to the information they’re looking for. Keep it simple.
UX can absolutely be outgrown, and when that happens, you need to think about getting a new website, and planning out your customer journeys from scratch.
6. The look and feel is inconsistent across the site
The user experience on your website needs to be consistent. When users are using your website they don’t want to have to stop and think. The last thing you want is for a user to get distracted or thrown off by inconsistent design or navigation.
What you really want is as little friction as possible between the user and the required conversion. If the look, feel, and function of your site is jarringly inconsistent across pages, your users will easily become distracted or frustrated trying to navigate and they’ll just leave.
7. Your website looks outdated
In the online world people do judge a book by its cover, so if your website looks bad on desktop, tablet or mobile they’ll leave. An easy way to assess your web design is to check out your competition’s websites. How does yours compare to the top competitors in your industry?
At the end of the day, are you happy with your website? Are you proud of it? Do you think it gives a good impression of your business? No? Then it's time you got a new one.
Quality design builds trust and credibility, so it’s hugely important to invest in a new website that shouts professionalism, lets your content shine and makes your website a pleasure to use.
8. You're behind your industry
The vast majority of consumers research online first before buying. On top of that, nearly all of your prospects will visit your website before contacting your business. With all of that initial research, you can bet potential customers are seeing your website and your competitors’ websites as well. How does yours look?
If your competitors have updated websites with better user experiences, then they’re starting off ahead of you. It’s going to take a lot of work to overcome that initial negative experience and get potential customers to contact you over a competitor with a better website.
9. Your website no longer reflects your brand
The first impressions visitors have can often be the difference from earning a potential customer or yet another bounce. You need to make sure you’re remembered for having a well-designed site that clearly defines your message, shows off your brand, and speaks to your customer’s pain points today, not as they were a few years ago.
Your website is a major asset for your business and is critical to communicating the right brand message. If its appearance and tone doesn’t reflect your current target audience or brand messaging, it needs to be updated.
10. Updating or adding content is difficult
Pretty much all websites are “content managed”, meaning their owners can log in to an administrative area and add pages, add content, add imagery and add news posts. If your website was created some time ago you might be stuck having to contact your current web designer to ask them to make changes, and this can get expensive. We can’t imagine anything more excruciating than that.
New website content management systems make it much easier for businesses to update their content – rather than depending on expert website developers to make changes using code. If you can’t update basic content easily, then it’s time for a new website.
11. You shy away from giving out your url
Nowadays, businesses and organisations are expected to have a strong online presence with a good website. Outdated websites are deterrents to new enquiries, prospects and sales. They also weaken your brand and credibility, which is really important to new website visitors.
Your website is the online face of your company and you should be proud to have it represent you. If you’re not, that’s a clear sign it’s time for a new site.
As soon as you feel inspired by how your website looks and the way it projects your business image, you’ll want to promote it and use it as the centrepiece to all of your marketing activity – which is exactly what you should be doing.
12. Negative feedback from customers
Think about how many times you’ve had a great, or not-so-great, experience with a business. Out of those experiences, how many did you let the company know about, either directly, through social media, or a leaving a review? It's probably “not many” or “none”.
For every customer that speaks up, there are plenty more who have stayed quiet or not bothered to let you know of a problem, so when you do get customer feedback, pay attention.
If you receive negative feedback from multiple customers about your website, then it is definitely time to consider a redesign.
Why do you need a new website?
If you're asking yourself “Do I need a new website?”, there’s a pretty good chance you already know the answer.
Hopefully you’ve found our advice useful and it’s got you thinking that now might be the time to revamp and update your website. If so, we'd love to help you achieve your vision.
