How to tell when you need a new website: Our top 4 signs.

It’s important to project the best image of your business, and your website is no exception to this rule. The web is likely the first place your customers and potential customers are going to look to learn about your business.

You don’t want to deter them by looking outdated and out of touch, or by making it impossible for them to access the content they came for. Just because you aren’t actively hearing complaints about your site doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem. Most people will simply leave your site if they don’t enjoy their experience or find it difficult to access valuable information. Check out the following list to see if you’re overdue for a website redesign.

1. Mobile Unfriendly Site

You hear us pushing responsiveness all the time, and for good reason. Responsive design is about good usability. It’s smart, and it ensures your customers will experience your site as you intended no matter where they view it from. Once thought of as a trend, it’s become recognized as the new standard in web design. We access the Internet from an absurd amount of different devices, all with different screen sizes, and that’s not going to change anytime soon. You need to account for the wide range of screen sizes your users will view your site on, and take advantage of responsive design to cover all your bases.

2. Lack of social media presence

Having a social media presence online is crucial now. If you aren’t sharing those accounts with your target audience on your main channel, your website, then how will they find you? Social media is a great way to build a relationship and keep in touch with your customers, as well as promote your business. It’s as simple as including the social links in the header or footer of your site, or the contact/about page. This way, your customers know exactly where to find you and can engage with your updates.

3. Can’t make edits

The inability to control what’s on your site makes it impossible to stay current and provide your users with the most up-to-date info about your company. The lack of current information will not only make your site look dated, it can also hurt your business. If you’re no longer offering a certain product or have extended hours of operation, your customers need to know. Make sure that you enlist the help of a good content management system when you redesign your site.

4. Slow website

We humans have pretty short attention spans (about the same as a goldfish) and even less patience. We want everything on the web to be lightning-fast. If your website takes more than 4 seconds to load, you’re likely to lose a third of your visitors in that time. As ridiculous as that statistic may be, it doesn’t change the fact that the longer your page takes to load, the more customers you’ll lose. Another important point to consider here: Google considers website speed in their search ranking algorithms, meaning you’ll fall further down the list of search results if your site is slow.

If you haven’t considered a new website design before, now is the time to start thinking about it. Airglow offers great options for website design and development at an affordable rate. To learn more about how we can help you reach your target audience with an exciting website, get in touch.