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Your website is your business’ portal to the world—as such, it has to keep up with the times!
While your website may have been cutting-edge a few years ago, there’s a high chance that it could look dated today.
You don’t want your website to look out of touch. After all, it’s often the first thing that people will see when they look up your business name online. As first impressions go, your website could be costing you. Unfortunately, it’s not just about aesthetics. To make sure that your website is attracting enough people, you will need to make sure that your website conforms with standards known to be favoured by Google.
Here are three signs that your website may need to be redesigned.
1. It’s not optimised for mobile
With mobile searches fast outpacing that of the desktop’s, it makes sense why Google is pushing websites to be mobile-friendly. This means that for your website to show up better on Google search results pages, it will need to be optimised for mobile viewing.
There are a few ways to approach this. Some websites opt to create a separate mobile version that shows up when it detects that the search is coming from a mobile device. While this works, it can be clunky, which can sometimes throw off long-time customers, especially if the mobile website is a bit different from the desktop version that they are used to.
If you have the budget, you are better off redesigning your website from scratch using what is called the “mobile-first” approach. This method prioritises the mobile experience and builds the desktop version from there, ensuring a cohesive and streamlined design across all screens.
2. It has a high bounce rate
The bounce rate is the percentage of people who enter your website and leave almost immediately without interacting with it. There are many reasons why people “bounce” off of a website. Depending on the kind of site that you run, high bounce rates could be normal.
According to Custom Media Labs, you should expect a 60-90% bounce rate for landing pages, where there are generally fewer links or pages to access. The same rates are also expected for news and events websites, where visitors are expected to read one article and leave.
However, if you have an e-commerce website and have higher than 20 to 45% bounce rates, then you may need a redesign. This is because the expected behaviour of people in these kinds of websites is to stay longer, make a few searches, add items to cart and maybe check out. Having a high bounce rate on these platforms means that there’s something that’s turning people away.
3. It loads slow
Today’s web visitors are not patient people. In fact, a study from Akamai reveals that people can only wait for a maximum of two seconds for your website to load before leaving. Slow-loading web pages can be a result of inefficient web design or an already slow web host that is bottlenecking because of exceeded bandwidth.
To improve your website’s page loading times, it’s best to look at getting a better web host with reasonable price plans and a website designer who will get rid of unnecessary and most likely outdated design features that are clogging up your server.
Conclusion
A website has many moving parts and any of them could be what’s making your website look outdated. While it’s definitely possible to do it yourself, you will save time and resources by hiring a professional website designer. Professional web designers will have the years of expertise as well as an updated design vocabulary necessary to bring your website up to today’s standards.
Lemongrass Media is a web design agency catering to organisations and businesses in Hitchin, Welwyn Garden City and other towns and villages across Hertfordshire. We take care of your website needs from design to launch with extended support for optimal integration. Want to get in touch? Contact us on 0800 690 6250 or enquiries@lemongrassmedia.co.uk