Redesign Your Website
Maintaining a website is no easy feat. It’s difficult enough to regularly update your site alongside your day-to-day operations as a business, so a total website redesign can unfortunately be put off for a long time. However, it’s important to make changes to your website to better meet the needs of your customers, follow the trends of your industry, and keep up with the demands of your product or service. Here are five reasons why it may be time to change up and redesign your website.
Your website is not optimized for all devices
Smartphones and tablets have become a key tool for conducting business both in and outside the office. Instead of taking out your laptop or bringing a client to your desktop computer to show them your website, you can use your phone, tablet, and maybe even your smartwatch; with just a few taps and swipes, your website is geared up and ready at your fingertips. But if your site isn’t mobile-friendly, the lack of functionality leaves you wasting time looking for a computer and eventually losing impatient clients.
Prior to the pandemic, the distribution of internet searches on desktop computers versus mobile devices was relatively equal. However, as of May 2022, mobile devices now account for 62% of search engine visits. In other words, people are taking advantage of the accessibility of mobile phones, and businesses need to recognize that they will lose customers if their websites aren’t optimized for mobile viewing. In fact, many search engines, including Google, now use mobile-first indexing when evaluating the relevance of a page to a user’s query.
When you are preparing to redesign your website, consider this shift in user behaviour and ensure your website is functional on a smartphone as much as it is on a computer. While many web design platforms use responsive design that automatically adjusts to a smaller screen, not all web elements translate well to mobile browsing. Instead of relying on out-of-the-box standards from a web platform that you may not be able to tweak just the way you like, take the time to work with a web design and development company to fully optimize your website for your untapped mobile market.
Your website is slow and difficult to navigate
In today’s day and age, people are almost always in a hurry. A sense of urgency and immediacy is attached to almost everything we do, and when something takes a bit too much of our time, we often walk away rather than hang around to wait for it. Websites are no different. Your current and potential clients need to be able to access information on your site quickly and easily. If a client gets held back by a loading page, they may seek the same or similar content on a competitor’s quicker website instead. When it really comes down to it, fast loading sites are crucial to a business’ success.
Website builders often provide optimized technology to ensure the framework of your site is snappy, but the amount of content on your site can get in the way of its fast performance. Page speed refers to how fast content on your webpage takes to load, and it is worth measuring throughout your redesign process. The easiest way to measure your page speed is by “time to interactive,” which Wix Blog describes as “how long it takes a page to load to the point where a user can interact with it,” like playing a video or clicking through a hyperlink. A fast website will be one that can load in under four seconds, though page speeds will vary across different pages and depending on the device being used.
Google PageSpeed Insights is one of the more popular ways of measuring page speed on a website, but Wix Velo, the development platform used by CodeMasters Inc., integrates Google PageSpeed data into its own analytics and Site Speed dashboard to make measuring page speed even more accessible for users. Performance is a priority for any Wix Velo site, and it is worth speaking with your Wix expert as you work to take your online presence to the next level.
Your website does not accurately reflect your brand
Businesses grow and change with each passing year, and it is important to update your brand along the way. As you develop new methods, pursue different initiatives, and set goals for your business, the brand image on your website should accurately reflect where and who you are at the current moment. A website that hasn’t been updated for two or three years will not continue to resonate with the same audience forever, and even some small tweaks will make a world of difference as you work to match the current trends of your industry.
Brand identity is multifaceted for any business, and each element should be taken into consideration as you redesign your website. While your brand name and logo may be the same, ask yourself if your brand’s tone of voice has changed over the past few years. Does the textual content on your website reflect those changes? Are you maintaining the same serious tone as when you first launched your business? Or has your growing customer base and friendly reputation allowed you to shift into a more conversational tone? Your website continues to speak even when you hang up the phone or close your inbox for the day, so consistency is key.
Colour palettes and typography are also important for your brand identity, and they are likely to shift over the years as much as your brand’s tone of voice. Brand colours should be used consistently throughout your website; the transitions between new and old pages should be virtually unnoticeable. Typography should also seamlessly match the identity already built by your brand name, logo, and colour palette. Does your strong, thick, tightly spaced font accurately reflect the friendly and familial tone your business has come to embody? Would wider spaces and a softer font fall more in line with your current brand identity? Check out some of the recent projects from CodeMasters Inc. to see how all these elements work together to reflect brand identity on modern and thoughtfully designed websites.
Your website lacks compelling written content
Writing a blog (like this one) takes time and effort, and it can be a difficult element to manage alongside the other components of your business’ website. However, any kind of compelling written content is a significant addition to your website and can increase engagement from new and old clients. A blog, a collection of success stories, weekly case studies, and any other longer form written content can function as a news source for your business and steer more online traffic your way. Even shorter form written content in the form of technical tutorials and regular business updates and announcements enhances your website and continues to reinforce your unique brand identity.
Written content leads more clients to your website through related keywords and backlinking. Like a social media post that generates likes via shares and reposts, regular content like a blog helps your business grow its audience through indexed pages. Each new written post creates more pages on your website, which means that there are more opportunities for your website to appear in search engine results. Your blog is your ultimate tool for covering all the different services and products your business has to offer, and it should not be overlooked during a website redesign.
Your website does not use social media marketing
Social media platforms are becoming important business marketing tools more and more each day. When your clients wake up in the morning to check Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, you can quickly tap into their wants and needs with a brief social media post that shows a new service, a business update, or even just that you are there to assist them with their next project. Social media as a platform aligns with the three core marketing areas of connection, interaction, and customer data, and it will be a struggle for your business to find other ways of influencing consumer behaviour.
Social media marketing evidently ties into featuring written content on your sites since you can condense blogs, case studies, and success stories into posts for your social channels. Consider this blog with five distinct sections for example: each section can be its own individual Instagram post or a series of posts on your Story. It’s not always necessary to produce new social media content when you already have strong content elsewhere on your website, and the seemingly different departments of your company can focus on working together instead of separately.
At the same time, it’s not an easy task to get your social media channels up and running if you haven’t used them before. As with any new additions or complex changes to your website, it is always worth your time to consult a digital marketing expert and even begin a more long-term relationship for your future endeavours. CodeMasters Inc. has a proven track record as a results-oriented marketing partner whose prior clients have experienced increased brand awareness, more new leads, and meaningful customer relationships.