Have you recently opened up your refrigerator and were surprised how many items were expired? It’s good to do the same with your website in order to prevent staleness and keep it “baking soda” fresh! Below you will find the five major signs that if your website is guilty of, it probably needs some degree of redesign. If your website checks out for these 5 signs, then you lack a solid foundation for a user-friendly website that attracts visitors and keeps them coming back. (Make sure to come back soon as we will follow up the next post with step-y-step ways to modernize and revitalize your website.)
1. Outdated Content
If your website hasn’t been updated in over 5-6 months, your content could be out-dated. Could you update your site with the latest trade-show event you attend or a recent honor you or your company received? Visitors – as well as search engines – come to your site expecting the latest information and content in your particular field. This phrase might be overused but it is always relevant, “Content is King”. If you are not updating your site often, whether it is because your Internet people always take at least 2 weeks to make an update, or your just don’t have the time/resources it is negatively affecting your websites performance.
2. Hard to Navigate
If it takes more than 2-3 clicks for your visitor to find the page you they are looking for, then you’re site is guilty of non-usability. Often times, websites are unfortunately created with no or little attention to the navigation tabs. These tabs are the basis for your visitors experience, so take time to see how you could revise these tabs to make them more powerful and effective. Warning: do not give the user too many options. People have a harder time deciding where to click next if they are given too many options – that is exactly why McDonald’s replaced its 12 basic buttons for cashiers with 7 basic buttons. Increased efficiency, bottom line.
3. All or No Text
In today’s culture, especially true with those who fall under the Generation Y category (including myself) has grown accustomed to everything instant. We want everything instantaneously. Instant coffee, fast food, and instant results – that’s why search engines are so prominent, they provide you with instant online results! The same holds true when it comes to your website. If you have too much text on your site, especially your homepage, you’re literally preventing the visitor from quickly and easily processing your content. They will likely click away as fast as they can and never look back. On the other end of the spectrum, if you have no or little amounts of text you are just as likely to need a website redesign for two reasons: 1) your lack of text is hurting your search engine marketing efforts; and 2) your not providing the right information to the visitor when you should. You can increase your online sales by as much as 225% just by providing the right product information to your customers at the right time (User Interface Engineering, 2001). Case in point, use your text wisely, make sure your copy is precise and relevant.
4. WOW Factor
A visitor to your website usually makes up his or her mind in 2-3 seconds, if whether they will explore further or click back. One of the most horrendous – and probably one of the easiest to avoid – mistakes we see when coming across new websites are blurry and jagged pictures. This has “unprofessional” written all over it. If your site has any blurry pictures, you are in what we call the “danger zone” of being deemed as not trustworthy by new web visitors.
Outdated Design Elements:
- Scrolling text
- Overuse of several colors on a dark background
- Waving flags (old school animated .gifs)
- Irrelevant pictures or overused stock photography
- Lack of column structure
- Narrow website
5. No Leads / Contacts / Sales
If you are not generating as many leads, inquiries or sales as you would like from your website your website design is most likely at fault. (Given that you are generating traffic to the site of course). One specific reason for this is that you are not placing the “call-to-action” button in an appropriate location. This “call-to-action” is what will convince the visitor that your product or service is worth their time. If they can not easily find this button (which often includes a phone number, email, or opportunity to fill out an online form) then you are at risk of loosing another potential customer. Once again, we need to reiterate the importance of the visuals on your website. There has been research that shows consumers are in an emotional state when they shop. And when they are in an emotional mode, they are more visually attuned – make sure your website is too.
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