Your website is the hub of all of your digital marketing, which means it needs to be on point. So how do you know if it’s doing what you need it to do? In this article, we’ll discuss 6 ways to evaluate your website, so you can decide once and for all if you need a website redesign.
Lead Generation
The main goal of your website is to build interest in your services or products and give you solid leads that can convert to actual sales. If you found this article, chances are you know your website isn’t doing this right now. And if you’re not getting the results you want, then it’s time for a change.
However, just because you’re not generating the leads you want, doesn’t mean your entire website needs to be redesigned. Maybe you only need small changes. Read on to learn more.
Mobile Responsiveness
You’ve probably heard of mobile responsiveness or “mobile first” design philosophies, but do you know what that really means?
First, it’s important to know that a mobile friendly website isn’t necessarily the same as a site that’s responsive. That means that your website might look OK on mobile devices without being fully responsive. So what’s the difference?
Mobile friendly websites are easy to view on mobile devices, but the navigation might not be very user-friendly and there could be issues when viewed at a higher resolution.
Websites that are responsive automatically adjust based on the size of any screen they’re viewed on. This will give users the most seamless experience across devices and is lower maintenance for you, rather than manually creating different versions of your site: one for desktop and one for mobile.
Dated Design & Slow Load Times
Design trends come and go — probably too fast for you to keep up with. You might not know what the trends are called, but you’ve no doubt seen them on sites you’ve visited. As trends age, they can make your site look old and dated. If a user finds your website and it looks dated, they might think that it’s not maintained and it could give them a bad first impression.
Even worse, some of these dated trends might also involve unnecessarily complicated design elements that can drastically slow down your page. If the page is dated and slow to load, chances are users will just abandon your website and look somewhere else.
Usability & Web Accessibility
It’s not enough for your website to look good. If the layout is confusing and disorganized, people won’t be able to find relevant information. This is especially true if your website wasn’t designed with usability and web accessibility in mind.
Usability applies to everyone who interacts with your website, which means it’s probably easy for you to spot if there are issues. Web accessibility is a little different — accessibility relates to people with disabilities who might have difficulty viewing certain aspects of your website. For example, images should have alternative text for users that need screen readers when viewing web pages. Alternative text won’t be visible on the page, but is essential for these users.
Broken Functionality
Technology is always changing and the web is no different. Depending on how your website was designed and implemented, there could be functionality that no longer works because of changes to web standards.
Have you ever noticed that aspects of your website work differently in different browsers? That could mean that a browser had an update and is no longer compatible with that element. As a result, you might have important elements on your website that just don’t work anymore. Maybe you have a form on your website for users to fill out and help you generate more leads. And maybe that form no longer works properly, meaning you miss out on all of those potential leads.
You Used a Free Template
When you first built your website, you might have chosen a free template on WordPress or used another website builder like Wix, Weebly, or Squarespace. It was somewhere to start, but these sites have limits, especially if you’re only using free templates and features.
It’s impossible to stand out when you’re using a free template that’s used by countless other websites. Not to mention that the SEO and marketing capabilities on these sites are limited, especially if you don’t have the knowledge and experience to navigate marketing technology yourself.
You might have paid someone to set up your website and not even know how they did it. Take a look at our blog post list “Little Known Questions to Ask Your Web Developer” and consider how your web developer set up your website. Did they use a generic theme? Did they build it in a way that makes it impossible for you to update it yourself?
What to Do Now
So by now you might be thinking, “I need a website redesign, now what?!”.
If you’re ready to invest in making your website a highly effective and super flexible marketing tool, we’re here to help! At Vox Pop Marketing, we build custom WordPress websites with a strategic, brand-forward approach.
Best of all, we design them so they’re super easy for you to use and update … because we believe every small business should have full control over its marketing. So take a look at our “Magnetic Website” design solutions and book a Brand Navigator call to learn more.
