This comprehensive list of signs that it’s time for a new website design will blow your mind.
Naturally, redesigning your website is completely normal because web design trends change constantly.
Every business needs an effective website. That’s because your business website is the hub of all of your internet marketing activities.
Without an effective website, you will never see significant results from any online advertising campaign.
But an effective website starts with a responsive web design.
With a responsive design, you will not only be able to see high-quality results on your digital marketing campaigns.
But you will also be able to position your brand above your competition.
However, achieving these results is only possible once you recognize that it’s time to give your business a new web design.
Let this blog open your eyes to the main signs that it’s time to update your website.
After all, you are losing precious dollars every day by not fine-tuning your website for its best performance.
Once you’re ready to send traffic to your newly-designed website, you can use our social media advertising services.
Top 25 Signs That You Need A New Website Design
1. Your website design is not generating revenue, sales, or leads
If you have been looking at your website and wondering why you aren’t generating any conversions.
Then this is a clear sign something may be off with your website.
When your website receives traffic, but no conversions, this is a big problem.
Your website could be missing something critical that is turning your website visitors off.
Frankly, there can be many reasons why your target audience isn’t receiving your website well enough to convert.
It could be anywhere from your visual design on landing pages to website speed time to the overall user experience.
Either way, when your website isn’t generating conversions. It’s time for a redesign.
2. Your website has no conversion funnel
Put yourself in the shoes of your website visitors.
The journey they take to convert should highlight what design elements to include on your site.
Together, those elements should create an efficient conversion funnel.
Now, if you have no clue what your website conversion funnel looks like, or, you do not know what a conversion funnel is in general.
Then investing in web design services is your best bet.
A conversion funnel includes the stages a visitor navigates through your website in order to convert.
Effective website designs will always help your marketing funnel to draw more conversions.
Starting from the homepage of your website, you should know how visitors will travel through your website to gain what they are looking for.
3. Your website design is outdated
You have not designed your website since dial-up Internet was the only way to get online.
Or, you have a new website, but the design doesn’t reflect the modern date it was made.
As time progresses, consumer tastes and preferences change.
If your website design is outdated and does not make a good impression, prepare for consumers to click the exit button.
Your website is never finished. Make gradual improvements to your website design over the years to keep up with the times.
And here’s something you might want to consider when updating your website design.
The trend now is having white space aka negative space along with simple layouts.
Gone are the days wherein you want several elements crumpled in one section of a page.
Incorporating these white spaces in your website design will improve readability.
Thus helping the users find the information they need without much difficulty scrolling through your website.
4. Your website design does not make a good first impression
First impressions are everything. The truth is that you only have 3 seconds to make an impression on a website visitor.
If your website does not make a good impression within this time frame, you will likely miss opportunities.
Needless to say, it helps to have a beautiful website that captures the attention of your website visitors instantly.
This speaks volumes of your business and helps create a great first impression.
5. Your website is not trustworthy or credible
Your website may not be or look, trustworthy. It may look sketchy.
People are afraid to buy anything on your website the first time, because “they don’t know who you are.”
Poor website designs can dramatically increase this feeling.
48% of people believe website design is the number one factor in deciding the credibility of a business.
This statistic sounds crazy but it’s true.
There are many testimonials that claim a bad web design is a key factor people consider before trusting any site.
Nonetheless, your website design is the reason people are converting, or not converting on your website.
6. Your website has a high bounce rate
Your website has a high bounce rate.
Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors to a website who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page.
In other words, people are exiting your website as soon as they enter it.
The only way you would be able to find out your bounce rate is by using a website analytics provider, such as Google Analytics.
The average bounce rate for most websites ranges between 40-50%.
Though, this varies across different industries. Your goal should be to have the lowest bounce rate possible.
Low bounce rates indicate that visitors find your website to be valuable.
Therefore, the lower the bounce rate you have, the more opportunities you have to increase sales.
A more effective website design can decrease your bounce rate and increase your conversions.
7. Your website has a low time-on-site
If your website visitors do not stay on your website long, then your website is turning people off.
They are not finding what they are looking for.
This could mean that your website is complicated, confusing, or just ineffective.
As a startup, small business, or online store.
It’s important for your visitors to stay on your site as long as possible because this means they’re able to digest more of your content.
A more effective website design will likely increase your time-on-site.
The longer people stay on your website, the more value they are finding on it.
The more value you offer your website visitors, the more likely they will convert.
8. Your website design is not mobile-friendly
This is a big mistake in today’s era because mobile devices account for a major portion of online sales.
If your website is not mobile-friendly, or you don’t even know if your website is mobile-friendly because you never visit your website on your mobile device.
It’s time for a redesign.
Your website visitors are having a hard time navigating through your website.
In fact, you look through your analytics and notice that none of your conversions come from mobile-devices. Does this sound like your business?
An effective website design is a website that focuses on the desktop and mobile experience.
After all, 50% of all internet users are using mobile devices.
46% of all people who use mobile devices reported difficulties in navigating websites.
Screen size and accessibility are key factors to keep in mind when it comes to designing a website.
Not to mention, an effective mobile website design is actually good for your search engine rankings.
Because search engines tend to rank mobile-optimized sites higher on search results.
9. Your website is not responsive
Is your website responsive? If not, then it’s time to take a deeper look into the web design process.
Responsive websites will expand to the full screen of whichever device you are using.
Typical devices are desktop computers, tablets, and mobile devices. Unresponsive websites can lead to some of the signs we’ve mentioned above.
It can cause high bounce rates, low time-on-site, and no conversions.
In order to offer the best website experience to your visitors, your website must be responsive.
This is a non-negotiable feature of your website.
Your visitors will be accessing your website on various devices and if you want to maximize your conversions, you need a responsive website.
10. Your website is slow
Is your website moving slow or loading slow on certain devices or browsers?
For example, your website could load slowly on Google Chrome, but loads perfectly on Internet Explorer. You should troubleshoot this.
If your site is loading slow, you can fix this by taking another look at your website design.
Remember, you only have 3 seconds to make a positive impression on your visitors.
If those 3 seconds are being spent trying to load your website, you are in trouble. Your visitors are going to exit before your website even loads!
Don’t miss out on opportunities by using an ineffective website.
The goal of a website menu is to make your visitor’s navigation of your website more simplistic.
If your website menu doesn’t serve this purpose, then it’s time for an update.
Imagine your visitors looking for specific information on your website, they go to your menu, and it’s ineffective.
It does not help your visitors find anything. Instead, it adds to their problems.
They can’t even figure out how to find the “products” or “contact us” page of your website.
This is a huge negative and you could be missing opportunities due to an ineffective website menu.
An effective, custom website design will include a sitemap.
This sitemap is a key part of our web development service because it includes the pages on your website.
And how your menu and site structure will navigate them to those pages.
12. Your website has no call-to-actions
Your website has no call-to-actions. And maybe you do not really know what a call-to-action looks like.
A call-to-action button is simply the area of a webpage that entices action. An example would be “sign-up now” or “get started today.”
Just like in email marketing, a good website implements call-to-action buttons whenever necessary to encourage visitors to take action.
You need a website design that creatively uses call-to-actions.
This is necessary to take your website visitors from point A to point B. It will take them from your home page to the purchase page.
Without call-to-actions, you are failing to help your visitors navigate through your website and properly convert.
13. Your website is on Wix, Weebly, or GoDaddy
Your website is on Wix, GoDaddy, Weebly, or something comparable.
These websites are limited. The user interface is limited. The SEO functionality is limited. And, it looks unoriginal.
We can look at a website and automatically tell if it is a Wix website.
While these platforms are great for small businesses to put something up (instead of nothing), it fails to build trust and credibility.
And since we’re being transparent.
Most business owners simply don’t have the time to fully design their websites on their own, which makes Wix appealing for a quick fix.
You otherwise may struggle with color-schemes, layouts, and miss little details.
14. Your cousin, nephew, or close friend designed your website
You never liked your website, but your friend designed it. So, you kept it.
Or, you did not want to pay the price for an effective website design, so you let your friend or family member design your site.
These are options are completely fine, but if you really want to optimize your site to achieve the goals you have for your business.
Your best option is to work with professional web design experts.
Even if you saved some money by using your friend or family, you’re potentially losing even more money due to the ineffectiveness of the design.
While your business finally has a website and online presence, you may be missing bigger opportunities to maximize conversions.
If you are not 100% in love with your website, your visitors probably are not either.
And, this should make you want to do something about your website design.
15. Your website is hard to understand
Your website is hard to understand. It makes sense to you, but no one else.
You used fancy words that potential customers do not understand and your readability is too complex so your readers aren’t able to digest your information.
Maybe the images on the website do not correspond with the message you want to portray.
Maybe the typography is inconsistent and the font sizes do not follow best practices.
Really there could be many errors that are making your site hard to understand that you may have overlooked.
But a professional website design will fix these errors and make your design more cohesive.
Avoid spending unnecessary time and energy on a website that you are going to completely overhaul in the future.
16. You are always thinking about changing your website
You are insecure about your website.
As soon as you tell someone your website URL, you say “don’t judge it, we’re still working on it.”
While you really don’t want people to judge your website, you are not really working on it.
With the right website design, you do not have to be insecure.
You will be confident in your website’s ability to effectively communicate your message to your visitors.
You will trust your conversion funnel and feel more comfortable with investing in advertising strategies.
17. Your website does not rank on search engines
This sign alone can show that your website design needs to be tweaked.
If your website is not optimized for search engines, you are missing a lot of quality traffic for your business.
It does not have the appropriate tags, coding, or descriptions to help increase search engine optimization.
As a result, you are missing out on thousands of free visitors to your website.
Search engines are very powerful. They give businesses the ability to reach their audience all across the United States and the world.
However, without properly optimizing your website to be visible on them, your site will never be as effective as it can be.
An effective website design is optimized for SEO.
18. Your website does not receive referrals
Your website does not receive any referral traffic.
Your website is not being shared on social media. It is not featured in industry-related blogs.
Your own customers are not sharing or recommending your website to their friends.
An effective website will change this.
If you focus on providing the best website experience to your visitors, they will become your biggest advocate.
They will share it on social media and with their friends.
You will also likely see an increase in referral traffic from other websites that find your website’s content to be useful.
19. Your website does not have a blog
Although content is king, your website does not have a blog.
Perhaps, the platform your website was built on is incapable of having a blog. Or, you just do not know how to install it.
Either way, including a blog, is a great content marketing idea that will help you bring in more organic traffic to your site.
WordPress is a great blogging platform for beginners that includes a content management system so you can easily update and publish blogs anytime.
20. Your Facebook, Amazon, or Etsy page is your website
Your Facebook, Amazon, or Etsy page is your website. It is where most of your sales occur.
Your customers do not even know your website exists. Perhaps, it is because you think it is irrelevant or not necessary.
This isn’t true. It is still important to have a website. All brands need to have some sort of hub to their marketing efforts.
Having third-party platforms like the few mentioned above act as your website gives you limited authority over your website and ultimately, business.
Having your own website allows you to make whatever changes you deem necessary, and most importantly, it gives you the ability to track everything.
21. You do not have a website
Maybe you’re completely new to digital marketing and you do not have a website or any web presence at all.
Perhaps, you are a brick-and-mortar shop and your customers find you offline. You’ve been in business for years, and maybe you think you don’t need one.
But this also isn’t true. Sooner or later, if you do not have an online presence, you will not have a business.
The shift to online is no longer a trend.
It is reality. Investing in an effective website to expand your business online is a major key to your business’s success now and in the future.
22. You rarely get positive feedback on your website
You rarely get positive feedback on your website.
Perhaps you generate sales, but never survey your customers to inquire on their experience with your website.
You may be missing opportunities to increase your conversion rate.
One change on your website may increase your sales. If you never get positive feedback on your website, ask for it.
Survey your customers, or ask a friend, to give you feedback on your website.
They can help expose fundamental design changes you can make to increase your bottom-line.
23. Your website design does not make you stand out
Your visitors can’t tell what is unique about your business. Your website does not differentiate you from the competition.
You are saying the same thing in the same way as hundreds of other businesses just like you.
An effective website design can help your business stand out.
You do not have to follow exactly what the market is doing.
You can do something completely different with your website that makes your business unique in the eyes of your visitors.
24. Your website is a liability, not an asset
Your website is a liability, not an asset.
It is hurting you more than helping you. It is costing you money, and not generating money.
Your website should be an asset, not a liability.
It should produce traffic, leads, and sales. If it is not, you should strongly consider redesigning your website to help increase your ROI.
25. Redesigning your website can take your business to the next level
When considering a website design, think of your website as if it was a store.
It is the platform on which your visitors make purchasing decisions. If your customers walk-into a messy store, they will have a poor experience.
If your customers can’t find your products (or services), they will not buy it.
Website Design: Final Takeaways
As you can see, all of these factors play a significant role in why your website may not be reaching the goals you have.
These signs are important and once you recognize them, they are not to be ignored.
Luckily, focusing on your website design can easily solve these errors and give your site the results it deserves.
And we have just the team to help! Contact us here or talk to an expert now at (404) 596-7925.
