Top signs that it’s time to update your website design

If it has been a while since you’ve updated your website design or you’re getting some complaints and comments, it could be time for an update. There are several signals that could point toward this. Pay attention to them rather than simply ignoring them and hoping they will put themselves right. If you notice one or more of the following signs, now could be the time for a significant website overhaul. Keep reading to find out more. 

Your competitors’ sites look more impressive 

As part of being a responsible business owner, you should always check out what your competitors are doing. If you look to them and then back to your own site and find that yours is sorely lacking, now could be the time to do something about it and get in touch with some website design services. 

While this doesn’t mean that you have to copy exactly what they are doing, you can be inspired to make some improvements based on what they’re putting out to the world. At the same time, just because a competitor has changed their site, this doesn’t mean that you have to follow suit as soon as possible. The website design has to be right for your business and has to have an overall positive impact. 

It simply looks outdated 

Website design has changed a great deal since the dawn of the internet. Therefore, it’s certainly worth looking if your site is up to scratch or not. A good way of reminding yourself of how much site design has changed is to check out some websites from years or decades ago to see how far it has come. 

Sometimes, your site can be improved with a simple bit of care and attention. On other occasions, this is simply not going to be enough, and it will need an entire overhaul sooner rather than later. 

The site is running too slow 

In an age of high-speed internet, if your site is running slowly, you’re likely to have people switching off sooner rather than later. Sometimes, there are simple improvements that can be made. At other times, it may be that the whole design of the site is slowing things up. In this fast-moving, modern world where people are more time-poor and impatient than ever before, you need to do more to get your site running effectively. 

You can’t add new functionality 

Even when you have a consistent site design over a long period of time, you will still want to add new features and functionality to the site. However, if you are no longer able to do this or it causes the entire site to slow down or crash entirely, this could be a frustrating problem that results in you needing to update the site design. Of course, you may not want to do this at the first sign of trouble but having it in the back of your mind to make improvements when the issues start to stack up is worthwhile. 

You’re getting complaints about the user experience 

It is always a good idea to get feedback from your users, but if you’re finding that more of it is negative than positive, this is certainly a clear indicator that you need to do something about it, and quickly. Again, some of these improvements can be made by tweaks to the site, but the deeper problems are going to need more extensive solutions such as an entire site redesign. There is no point in ignoring these complaints—even if they seem quite harsh to begin with. Ultimately, it is a privilege to know about them as it means that improvements can be made. 

Too many unresponsive pages 

Perhaps you haven’t remained on top of checking your site for a long time, and now the number of unresponsive changes has started to get out of control. Not only can this spoil the overall user experience, but it also makes it less likely that you will climb up the rankings on the major search engines. While you could go through and fix all these pages one by one, it is the more likely and better solution to look into a website redesign at the same time. Once the new site is up and running, you are better off looking at the pages on a more regular basis and fixing any and all issues when they happen, rather than allowing them to stack up.

It’s impacting your SEO 

If you have a close eye on your SEO (search engine optimization) and find that your site is not climbing up the rankings in the way that you would want or expect it to, there is every chance that the site design is acting like a blocker here. 

For this reason, it is worth keeping a close eye on how you are doing in terms of the SEO. This way, you will be able to implement a site design that helps you to achieve your goals. Sometimes, they can involve the use of a Content Management System that has inbuilt SEO-boosting factors within it. The closer attention you pay to these, the better it is likely to be. 

It’s reflecting badly on your business 

Modern businesses need to have excellent websites. Otherwise, people are likely to take one look at them and think that the company as a whole is simply not up to scratch. So, if you have experienced one too many comments about your website, it may well be time to sit up and take notice of them. You don’t want to find yourself in a position where you keep on getting negative reviews and you’re simply not doing anything about them. 

If you have noticed one or more of these signs impacting your business, you’re not going to get much of a clearer indicator that you need to do something about it. Otherwise, they’re going to keep on affecting your company when this isn’t needed at all. A simple website redesign can pay dividends to your business.