You may have been surfing the web looking for a specific product or service and have stumbled across a website that looked quite out of date. What was your initial reaction when you came upon that site? Just like any first impression, it can be a lasting one.

Just as one’s wardrobe, business websites need to be refreshed. It doesn’t mean that it has to be a giant overhaul of the entire site, but just as with anything else that gets old with time, websites need to be cared for and updated.

We’ve put together 8 reasons why you might want to consider a website redesign:

1. The First Impression Fails to Impress

What you may have come up with for a design on your own or a site that was designed for you five, ten or more years ago is long out of date and may look quite unprofessional in today’s website design standards. When someone engages your site, it only takes a few seconds to impress them. Having a professional, engaging, and appealing website is a must.

A business website with a fresh new look and feel is a good investment that will pay off sooner rather than later. An updated look can even help you bring in a new targeted audience or a higher level clientele.

2. The Competitor is Running Circles Around You

Are you actively analyzing your competition as part of your business plan? What are they doing in social media and how active are they? What does their website look like and what business systems do they have in place that are bringing in customers regularly? Do you breathe a sigh of relief because their site is no match to yours? Or is their site “killing it”, as they say?

Your potential customers are comparison shopping. It’s very easy for anyone to do on the internet because it’s all out there. It’s your job, as the business owner, to keep your website professionally updated and easy to use.

3. Your Sales Are Down

There are quite a few reasons that your sales could be suffering, so we can’t just assume it’s because of a visual issue on how your website looks. But in a lot of cases, poor layout and content may be what is preventing visitors from becoming loyal customers.

It really comes down to trust. By the way your website is presented makes a huge difference in whether or not visitors are finding your business trustworthy.

4. Your Tech is Outdated

If your website was built on the WordPress framework (which is what we use here at Copper City Digital), then you most likely know that there are updates happening all the time with this content management system (CMS). Plug-ins regularly need updating as well as shopping cart systems. If these are left alone unattended, hackers can take advantage of security holes.

By having the latest security patches installed, this will prevent events like that from happening.  The more secure your website is, the less likely there will be any security breaches. It safeguards your information and your customer’s information and keeps hackers from installing viruses to your server.

5. Not Mobile Friendly

Mobile traffic to websites has finally taken over desktop. If your site is not mobile friendly, it could be costing you a huge opportunity on more visitors and sales. Having your website updated can ensure that it will look on a smart phone or tablet. When a website has been design to be “responsive”, it will look good on any screen that it is displayed on.

6. Your Focus Has Changed

It’s normal for businesses to shift over time when you are developing new products or services, or targeting a new demographic. No matter how your business changes, it’s your target market that should be driving that change. Keeping your website updated to your marketing plan will make sure your website is the focus of your marketing efforts.

If your contact info has changed after a move, or you have added (or lost) employees and you have bio information on your website, it is good to have this freshly updated as well.

7. Time to Declutter

Maybe at one time it was good to have a paragraph of copy to explain a product or service, but over time, this can feel jumbled and less effective.

When a website’s structure has been improved, this will benefit your search engine optimization (SEO). Improving the architecture, page and image names, meta tags and content will make your website much more SEO friendly.

Your customers will also benefit by a better user experience that a simpler layout and easy navigation provides. They will find what they are looking for without getting lost or distracted.

8. It Lacks Social Media Functionality

Through the years, more social media platforms have popped up on the scene and your website may possibly not be able to connect to potential customers on these, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn (to name a few). Having buttons that allow your readers to share your content increases brand awareness and SEO.

Final Thoughts

There are much more than 8 reasons to redesign a website, but we hope we’ve shown you a few good reasons an improved look and feel is more likely to convert visitors to customers. Google loves fresh updated pages for search engine optimization, hackers are less likely to have a chance to cause havoc, and the list goes on.

Investing in your business to have a fresh, professional design will make a huge difference to your business, your brand, and your customers. Let Copper City Digital, LLC help you to have the right look for your site so that you have the correct systems, a mobile friendly site, and an SEO ready design to bring in the customers that are looking for you.