Five Signs You Need a New Web Design
Web design, much like fashion trends, CBS sitcoms and our favorite local watering holes, can become outdated as fast as they became vogue.
Any Columbus business owner or marketing executive with an online presence can nod their head in agreement– your customers have a preexisting set of expectations for their experience on your site. Are you giving them that experience or is your web design failing to convert online visitors into customers? Spoiler alert: If your site was designed when Netscape was still a thing, you probably need a new web design.
A high-functioning, well-designed website is as critical as having insurance or being incorporated. But a website redesign can be a major undertaking. So, before you start spinning your coding wheels, ask yourself these essential web design questions:
Does your web design reflect where your business and brand are now?
The Achilles heel of many websites is not updating it as your business evolves—not just visually, but from a content standpoint, too. Many websites get locked into the initial web design, and over time, do not accurately reflect the brand they represent. Matching offline and online experiences and reinforcing your brand at every consumer touchpoint is paramount. As your business grows, make sure your website does, too.
Is your web design responsive?
Responsive web design refers to how your website displays on differing screen sizes and devices. Your audience will use a plethora of devices to view and shop your site, so having a web design that displays optimally can be the difference between capturing a sale and losing a customer forever. It’s also important to denote the difference between responsive and a mobile site. A truly responsive site will readjust its layout to any size screen whereas as mobile site is a separate web site altogether—and a separate site means a separate budget. One web design for all platforms. That’s your best bet. Still not quite sure what is responsive web design? Take a look at some of our previous Cement Marketing clients. Create once, viewable everywhere.
Are you losing site traffic year-to-year?
A very strong indicator it’s time for a new web design is if the traffic to your website is on a year-to-year downslide. When your traffic is trending in the wrong direction it’s because of two reasons: One, search engines are not crawling your site or two, your site has gone stagnant. A web design refresh is like giving your site a shot of adrenaline. Regardless of web design, make sure your site is SEO-friendly.
Does your website have a long load time?
Mobile devices have changed the expectation of what an adequate load time is for a user. Tons of information, scripts and photos require data that will cost you precious time. So what’s an optimal load time? 5 seconds. That’s it. If your site takes longer than that to load, a new and improved web design might be your best solution.
When was the last time you refreshed your web design?
This seems like an obvious question, but seriously, when was it? Has it been more than three years? If so, your web design is most likely underperforming. In recent years, the improvements to user experience and expectations on site design and point-of-sale conversions have created an almost new online landscape. A new web design coupled with SEO/SEM can transform you business—not just online, but the bottom line.
Don’t worry, Cement Marketing has your web design covered.
No one ever said optimizing your web design was easy. It’s not. If it were we’d all be web nerds. But we here at Cement Marketing can help. Whether it’s assessing your site’s performance, refreshing your homepage with new copy and layout or launching a total web redesign, we can assist you every step of the way. Want to build something great for your audience? Cement Marketing is a Columbus web design agency that does that and more. Give Josh Fitzwater a holler at josh@cementmarketing.com.