10 Signs You Should Invest in a New Website

In today’s technological age, your business’ website is the first thing that people will see when they’re searching for services or products in your field. The importance of an excellent first impression can’t be stressed enough, and people will make judgements on the quality of your business based almost exclusively on the website design that they see.

With this in mind, not every website is designed effectively, and there are 10 tell-tale signs that you should invest in a new website:

1. Drop in clickthrough rate

   The first and most pressing reason to invest in a new website is when you notice a drop off in the clickthrough rate (the number of people who proceed to buy something or sign up for your service). This is likely because your potential customers don’t find your site easy to use or visually appealing, so a redesign can help fix these issues.

2. Drop in blog subscriptions

   For some business owners, it’s more important to have blog readers and subscribers. If your WordPress data suggests that less people are signing up for your updates, a new website that provides easier access to your blog and subscription form will help to improve these metrics.

3. Drop in Google rankings

   You should always be keeping an eye on where your website ranks on Google for a variety of search terms that people would use to find your site. If you notice your rank dropping, you will need to invest a new website that will make use of responsive web design and current SEO techniques to put you closer to the top of that first search page.

4. New technology is available

   If your website is more than 5 years old, the chances are that some of the technology used to build it, such as basic HTML, will no longer display correctly on modern smartphones and tablets. A redesign here will allow you to use CSS and HTML5 to better display your banners to market your business more prominently.

5. You’ve rebranded your business

   There is nothing worse for a consumer to see an out-of-date website, so if you’ve rebranded or simply freshened up your logo, you need to make sure your new website reflects these changes.

6. Few payment options

   With the advent of Apple Pay, Google Wallet, Venmo and others, your website that only offers PayPal and credit card payment will quickly lose business. However, the infrastructure required to support all these options will necessitate a full redesign, as well as integration with your current payment systems.

7. Outdated database

   Sticking on the new technology front, there are now many ways for your website to host your customer’s details, stock balances and even your financial services. If you’re still reliant on physical servers in your business’ building, you’re putting yourself at risk of server failure or damage from an accident and should be thinking about moving as much of this information to the cloud as you can. Again, this is a sign that you need a new website that will automate a lot of the data transfer for you.

8. Integrated emails

   Gone are the days when people won’t notice or care about a @hotmail.com or @xfinity.com email address for your company. They look tacky, and show that you haven’t made the investment in a personalized email address. Having your business name as part of your email address is also a smart business move as it lets people know who you are and where you’re from straight away. However, you’ll need a new website to host the new email accounts.

9. Wasted time in keeping it updated

   You have better things to do with your time than to continually update your website, and not many businesses have the extra capital at hand to hire someone to do it for them. Responsive web design utilizing a content management system (CMS) allows you to keep everything fresh easily and quickly, allowing you to focus on the core business.

10. Customer feedback

    Finally, the biggest sign that you need a website is to listen to the feedback of the people who use it regularly – your customers. Even if you think it’s easy to navigate and organized in a logical fashion, they will quickly let you know if that’s not the case. The good thing is that if they’ve reached out with negative feedback, you can then ask for their suggestions as to how to improve things and to check in with them once you’ve invested in the new website.