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It’s probably easy to think of reasons having a website is important for your business. It promotes your company in a way that nothing else can. Your customers are able to learn about who you are, what you do, and what you stand for.
Customers can also see what other customers have to say about your business. They can gather information about your products and services and make thoughtful buying decisions. As a result, a good website supports customer service and builds relationships.
The potential audience your website can reach is vast. A majority of people in the world are on the internet, and they use it a lot.
In 2020, almost 4.54 billion people (or 59% of the global population) used the internet.
Google receives over 63,000 searches per second each day.
There were over 5 billion Google searches per day in 2018
The average person conducts between 3 and 4 searches every day.
Your website has the potential to be a central part of your marketing strategy and to help drive your company’s revenue.
But is your website really living up to its potential? It’s not enough to just create a site and then forget it. You need to be sure it’s optimized to help you reach your customers and grow your business. If it’s not, you may want to consider a redesign.
Some signs that your website may no longer serving your business.
When was the last time you redesigned your website? Never? One rule of thumb says that if a website is more than 2 or 3 years old, a redesign is in order.
But more important than what the calendar says is whether your website seems out of date. Take a look at the overall design. If your graphics were trendy five years ago and your photos are outdated, your website will seem stale.
And it doesn’t take long for a potential customer to decide that your website is outdated and take their business elsewhere.
… that 94% of first impressions are design-related.
… that 75% of consumers admit to making judgements on a company’s credibility based on the company’s website design.
… that 46% of consumers base their decisions on a website’s credibility on its visual appeal and aesthetics.
… that 38% of people will stop engaging with a website if they find it unattractive.
When people decide your website is out of date, they’re likely to conclude that your company is out of date, whether it’s true or not. In most cases, this negative impression will cause you to lose potential customers.
To decide if a website redesign might be a good idea, really think about the site’s visual appeal. Consider whether updating your design with the use of color, videos, original photos, typography, icons, and graphics would make it seem more current.
Also consider whether your brand has changed. If your products, services, or brand messaging have evolved lately, or if your company is growing, it’s probably time for a rebrand. You want your website to show your customers who you are today, not who you used to be.
From smartphones to laptops to tablets, people spend more time these days on their mobile devices than at their desktop computers. In 2021, there were 5.22 billion unique mobile users, which is 66.6% of the global population. With so many people using these devices, mobile internet traffic now accounts for the majority of activity online.
As we’ve all experienced, the same website can look and function very differently on different types of devices. It’s not enough for your website to look good on a desktop monitor; it needs to work well on any device. If it doesn’t, you’re unlikely to attract customers.
Mobile devices are prioritized for search indexing, too. Back in 2018, Google rolled out its mobile-first index. This meant that, in case of differences between desktop and mobile versions of a website, the search index would use the mobile site as the primary content source.
Optimizing for mobile has become a critical part of the web design process. Mobile-friendly websites increase traffic, keep customers around, and increase conversions. If your website isn’t up to date and ready to handle all the traffic from mobile devices, you might want to consider a redesign.
As technology continues to improve and speed up, our expectations inflate too. Where we might have been willing to wait for a site to load back in the days of dial-up internet, people today demand lightning-quick speeds. It doesn’t take long for visitors to lose patience with trying to access your website.
This can be a huge problem for your bottom line. If visitors never get further than your landing page before they click away in frustration, how can you connect with them and turn them into customers?
You will experience a 20% drop in conversions for every second of delay in mobile page load time.
Websites that load in 5 seconds (on mobile) have 25% more ad visibility and 70% longer session duration.
61% of users are unlikely to return to a site on mobile if they had trouble accessing it. 40% will then visit a competitor’s site instead.
Of course, there are other reasons besides slow loading times for visitors to bounce from your website. We’ve already discussed how outdated design will drive them away. And they’ll also leave if they believe the site is irrelevant or difficult to use (more on that later).
But slow loading times definitely contribute to the problem. Altogether, you want to keep your bounce rates between 26% and 40%. Rates higher than 55% are a problem.
A website redesign can help you fix your loading times, which will improve your bounce rate. And when potential customers actually spend time on your site, you have a chance to win them over with your products, services, and value proposition.
Once visitors have decided to remain on your site, you still unfortunately have opportunities to frustrate them and risk them clicking away. If your website is confusing or visitors can’t easily find the information they need, they might take their business elsewhere.
When thinking about how customers experience your website, remember the acronym UX/UI. While UI stands for User Interface (i.e., the visual side we discussed above), UX stands for User Experience. This is the organization of your site that determines how users interact with it.
Navigation is a big part of UX/UI design. Visitors should be able to find what they need on your website without thinking about it too much or putting in too much effort.
If users are overwhelmed by text or the site layout is overly complicated, they might leave. Visitors also don’t want to have to hunt through more than two levels of drop-down menus to find what they’re looking for.
If your website is difficult to navigate, your bounce rate increases and your conversions decrease. Choosing to redesign your website offers the opportunity to rethink how potential customers interact with your website and how to make their experience a positive one.
If search engines can’t find you online, neither can your customers. But it’s not enough for Google to locate and index your site. Your website’s ranking is what matters most. It’s best to be on the first page of results for the keywords your customers are using to search.
Not only should you aim to be on the first page, but your website also needs to rank as high on the first page as possible. Results go sharply downhill after that.
Most people don’t click past the first page of search results.
The top listing in Google’s organic search results receives 33% of the traffic, while the second position receives only 18%, and it only gets worse from there.
The first five positions on page one of Google get 68% of all clicks.
Results on pages two and three of Google get only about 6% of clicks.
There could be a number of reasons that your website isn’t showing up in search results or appearing on the first page. The keyword market is extremely competitive, and SEO ranking factors are complicated.
But by changing some elements of your web design, you can improve your ranking. Statistically speaking,
High-quality content and link building are the two most important signals used by Google to rank your website for search.
Top results on Google’s first search engine results page have 3.8 times more backlinks than those below them.
Good content impacts SEO when it is well-written, relevant, credible, informative, engaging, and valuable. Also, developing a content pillar strategy and updating the existing content on your site can help.
Backlinks improve SEO by indicating a site’s quality to search engines. The goal is to link to quality content on other sites while ensuring your own content is good enough that other people want to link to your site.
Though SEO can be difficult, ranking high in organic results is one of the best ways to drive traffic to your site and connect with customers. Website redesign can help you figure out and fix the reasons your SEO isn’t working.
If you’re considering a website redesign at this point, what’s next?
Outsourcing your web design can be a smart and efficient choice for a number of reasons:
Technology:
With an agency, you get access to the industry’s latest technology and trends, along with the people who know how to put these tools to good use.
Expertise:
The people working on your website design and marketing will be specialists and experts with years of experience, and you can expect the highest quality visual and marketing results.
Focus/Growth:
Unless you’re a web development company, web design isn’t one of your core competencies. If you’re freed up to do what your company does best, you’ll enjoy faster business growth.
Time Savings:
Since you don’t have to build a team, manage it, and fit it in with your other responsibilities, you’ll save time by outsourcing.
Cost Savings:
Since you don’t have to hire and train staff, not to mention obtaining additional software, you will save money.
At Hudson Fusion, we believe that your website should be your strongest marketing tool. And we should know—we’ve been doing this since before Google was a thing.
We develop powerful, marketing-optimized websites that showcase your brand personality and drive new business. In addition to strategic design, we offer the ongoing support, maintenance, and optimization that will keep your website up to date and reinforce your marketing goals.
Schedule a time to talk with one of our marketing experts about our strategy-driven website redesign process. We’d love to help your company grow with a website that is your best online marketing tool.
Find out how agency support could accelerate the growth of your organization. Fill in your details and a member of our senior team will be in touch to discuss.
“We have a trusting bond and partnership with Hudson Fusion and we could not have picked a better agency”
info@hudsonfusion.com
