A web design update is a great way to attract more visitors, improve user experience, and boost your conversions. Your business needs it—and your patrons will thank you for it.
Give your online store a new and improved look this holiday season to keep up with the rush and shopping habits of your customers. Follow this guide for some website revamp inspiration!
12 Reasons Why You Need a Website Redesign
1. You have set new marketing goals for your site
Business owners often change strategies to meet certain goals, so each time you adjust your marketing plans, make sure that your site aligns with these new goals.
Ask yourself…
- How often do you modify your marketing strategy?
- Do these updates affect your conversion funnel?
For example, if are now to provide more lead generation content (like “How-to” blog posts), you should include CTAs on your homepage and other high-traffic webpages.
2. Slow site speed
Site speed is one of the leading factors that can make your site visitors stay longer or leave right away.
The user-experience you offer can affect your online presence, so if your website is slow, chances are, you’re using a slow hosting platform and it is poorly developed. Remember, users are not patient—they expect instant activity at the click of a button.
3. You aren’t getting the results you want
Now, it doesn’t matter if your website is all tart up and functioning well. If you still aren’t getting the results you want, it’s close to being useless. Your website exists to build your digital presence and customer base, and if you aren’t happy with the return, then it’s time to redesign.
Here are a few things to guide your website redesign process:
- Does your call-to-action (CTA) convert visitors into leads and customers?
- Is your site too text-heavy or full of technical/corporate jargon?
- Do your landing pages motivate people to learn more by navigating deeper?
- Does your website’s look and feel match your company’s voice?
- Does it speak directly to your target audience?
Analyzing your conversion rates such as visitor-to-lead and lead-to-customer can provide you with a clear idea of what needs to be adjusted on it.
4. An overcrowded homepage
Ever read a website with just pure, never-ending text with no images? Overwhelming, right? And quite boring, too! A common mistake entrepreneurs make is putting excessive content right on the homepage of the website.
It’s understandable that you want to fit as much information as you can to sell your products or services, BUT it can increase your bounce rate too. You have only a few seconds to capture the interest of an online visitor, so you must be direct to the point with the message on your homepage.
A web designer virtual assistant (VA) can put together a layout that will express your core value proposition and single differentiator in the marketplace. Then, your landing pages will showcase additional features that the users may find relevant as they move down the sales funnel.
5. Your website just doesn’t work
Your site might still not be as user-friendly as it could be as there can be other elements of it that aren’t effective—and they can make your online store a bit dysfunctional.
Answer these questions to help with redesigning the website functionality:
- Is your site navigation confusing?
- Can a visitor easily find the most basic things YOU want them to find?
- Are your product and service offers completely up-to-date?
6. You still don’t have a responsive design
In 2016, 82.5% of the US population were mobile users. ~ eMarketer Click To TweetWith this in mind, consider that most first-timers coming to your site are on their mobile devices. And it will only increase in years to come.
A responsive design provides customers with a great experience regardless of the platform they are using. This allows you to accommodate them all whether they are coming from mobile, table, or desktop.
This should also be a top priority for your company, because your competition already has an advantage over you if they have a responsive design.
7. You want to execute a better content strategy
With the constant changes to the algorithms of search engines, you’d be smart to incorporate an efficient content plan for your website. It can improve everything from customer retention to SEO.
A web redesign can help if you’re planning to make some big changes to your content strategy like boosting your blog production or making room for more ebooks, and other downloadable pieces.
8. You’re eyeing an effective website layout
So, if you’re already considering a redesign, most likely you’ve learned a fair amount about what does and doesn’t work well in the process. It is recommended to take the interactive approach instead of implementing one massive goal all by yourself.
A web design VA can help you use the information you’ve gathered about what works on your current site and together you can plan accordingly. You can have your tech assistant handle all the small changes and every little detail.
9. It’s difficult to contact you
Since most people are using mobile devices to shop online, having a phone number on your landing page is a must. In this way they can do a quick screenshot of the web page to contact you later or while they’re on-the-go.
Aside from that, potential customers feel more comfortable when there is a way for them to reach you, inquire more before making a purchase, or speak to a virtual support.
10. Your third-party tools are outdated
As time goes by, you may need to replace or remove some of the third-party tools you’ve embedded in your site such as shopping cart widgets. You need to determine first which ones aren’t up to modern functionality standards.
To do this, have the Tech VA examine the following…
- Are these third-party tools still working?
- Are new-and-improved versions now available?
- Are they slowing your site speed down?
Nothing drives customers away like outdated features in terms of function or design or just don’t work at all, so make sure you talk with your webmaster to handle these tools.
11. Poor product / service graphic presentation
Poorly designed imagery can give the impression that you don’t care about your brand or your customers. While stock images will do in showing your products and services, people may want to see authentic visuals of what it’s like to use your products, or to work with your services.
Avoid using or low-quality images. There are many alternatives to stock photography, from photos taken on an iPhone to inexpensive illustrations done by a graphic designer VA.
12. Your competitors push you down in the search rankings
Well, you don’t need to change your site every time one of your competitors changes theirs. But if they make changes that improve their rankings and end up pushing you down in searches, it’s likely time to do some redesign on your end.
Maintaining a findable and high-ranking website should also be one of your goals. An SEO Virtual Assistant can help you by conducting an audit report on your site and analyzing what adjustments you can make.
8 Factors to Consider in Revamping Your Website
- Functionality first – Put your customer’s hat on and browse your site as any visitor would. Is it easy to get from the home page to the product you’re looking for? Are answers to your most common questions readily available?
- Do a thorough site audit – Have an expert perform a complete SEO audit. The analysis will guide you of what you should keep and what you can remove such as inbound links or long-forgotten pages.
- Consistency is key – Though revamping your website gives you a new look and feel, you don’t want to stray too far from your current branding.
- Draft a detailed plan for your content – This is also the best time to generate new content for your website. Use the SEO audit to find out what generates the most attention and what doesn’t. Expand on the article topics and posts that do well.
- Don’t forget the redirects – Maximize all the pros from your previous site and carry these over to the new one. Hold on to valuable content and set up a redirect so your inbound links and established SEO aren’t completely lost.
- Interactive desktop experience – Instead of cramming in information in a whole landing page, designers can make it more visual, elegant, and entertaining with width-hugging videos and interactive platform.
- Don’t overdo it – Redesigning a website isn’t a strategy that you want to use often since it requires a lot of time, money, and effort. Your revamped website should have the staying power to last for years. It’s important to make sure your regular marketers and content management team can update it easily within the existing framework.
- Pros do it best – Don’t struggle to finish a mediocre do-it-yourself job if you’re not equipped with in-house web design experts. Understanding where you need to outsource is crucial, especially if it will create a better and stronger output that will give you the results you need.
Revamping your website can seem like a complicated task, but it can be very rewarding along the way. Start planning your re-launch that will help boost your company and online presence.
As soon as you develop a solid plan and identified goals for your new website, get the right talent to work on the revamp. A topnotch web design virtual assistant (VA) can do the following:
- Design and create your website
– Blog and personal sites
– Real estate sites
– Portfolio, multimedia, news and magazine sites
– Business and e-commerce sites - Web maintenance
- Custom logo design
- Custom product design
- Additional custom pages
- Mobile-responsive web design upgrade
- Additional revisions depending on your web project requirements
Virtual Assistant Talent offers free consultation to discuss your website requirements with the Tech VA, HR manager, and project manager us. CALL US at 1-866-596-9041 to learn more.
References:
hubspot.com
huffingtonpost.com
upwork.com
blog.livehelpnow.net
americanexpress.com
