You will never get a second chance at making a good first impression. Website design plays a crucial role in making a good first impression for your established brand. A website update should be a top consideration for any modern marketer, as it is a cost-effective way to capture leads, promote products and services, enhance digital marketing strategy and improve security. Your website is the digital storefront for your brand and is essential to connect with your target audience.
Website Visuals
Your website is the online representation of your company and serves as an extension of your brand. A well-designed and professional website that provides valuable information and resonates with your target audience will make your brand stand out amongst competitors. On the other hand, a poorly designed and outdated website can negatively reflect on your company.
Mobile Responsiveness
As we live in a society where smartphones are widely used, more time is spent on mobile devices than on laptops. With Google’s upcoming mobile-first indexing update, it is crucial to pay attention to the mobile market. Ignoring mobile users may result in losing potential customers. To avoid this, it is becoming standard practice to make a website mobile-friendly with responsive design. Responsive Web Design is a set of techniques that allow a website to adapt to the size of the screen on which it is being viewed. This means that users who visit your site on a smartphone will see the same content as those who visit it on a laptop. If your website hasn’t been updated in a while, it may be beneficial to design it with “mobile-first” approach to ensure that mobile users have a positive experience.
Website Coding
When revamping your website, it is important to ensure that it is compatible with the latest web browsers, that the source code is valid (HTML and CSS), that it meets basic web standards, and that it utilizes a current programming language. As a website ages and expands, it is not uncommon for certain elements to become outdated and stop functioning correctly. Keeping your website updated with the latest technologies will help ensure that it continues to perform well and provide an optimal experience for users.
Call-To-Actions
Websites that are not updated often lack effective calls-to-action (CTA) which is crucial in converting visitors into paying customers or leads. A CTA is a button or link on your website that guides visitors to take specific actions on your site. To evaluate the effectiveness of your CTAs, it is important to determine if every landing page on your website clearly displays your unique selling proposition and a corresponding call-to-action that is compelling enough to persuade visitors to take action.
Content
While the overall design of a website creates the initial impression, users often visit sites to find valuable information. A new web design can help create a more engaging experience for your audience. When updating your website, it’s essential to have copy that is both engaging and to the point, minimal and relevant. With the average attention span being just a few seconds, the most crucial aspect of a website is its content, as it determines how well it serves its purpose. Fresh, unique website content is a valuable asset that can encourage users to return to your site more often.
SEO Benefits
Along with a website redesign, reevaluating your overall digital marketing strategy can be beneficial. Search engines like Google and Bing penalize outdated websites by reducing their organic search ranking. Websites with the most recent content are considered the most relevant, but it’s important to remember that even great content has a shelf life.
A website redesign also provides the opportunity to revisit your keyword targeting and overall conversion rate. The way users search has changed significantly in recent years, and it is likely to continue to change quickly as mobile device usage increases. As web standards evolve and website development techniques advance, it is important to consider the increase in usability in web design. If your website was built several years ago, it probably contains a lot of unnecessary HTML code that is slowing down the website’s load time, which can affect the domain ranking authority. The importance of Search Engine Optimization is something that our team can help advise on.
User Experience
User Experience (UX) pertains to how user-friendly and efficient a website is for visitors, including factors such as loading speed, ease of finding information, and the level of friction when attempting to complete desired actions. The design and layout of your website should be structured in a way that guides different types of visitors to their desired experience, with a focus on the most important information.
Website Bounce Rate
The bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who come to your website and leave without visiting any other pages. A high bounce rate is usually an indication that a website is outdated or not performing well. Users tend to leave a website quickly if they are unable to find what they are looking for or if they do not like the website’s design. By understanding how long users stay on your website compared to industry standards, you can identify potential opportunities to improve your website.
Performance
Website load time plays a significant role in determining whether visitors stay or leave your site. Fortunately, there are various third-party tools available that can assist in identifying ways to improve your website’s load score. If your score is low, it’s important to review the elements of your website that may be slowing down load speed, such as large images, other assets and files like videos.