A New Year Is A Good Time To Update Your Site
 |
| Photo by Pavel Danilyuk from Pexels |
A New Year Is A Good Time To Update Your Site - but not because it's a new year, but because every site should be reviewed and renewed on a regular basis.
WordPress offered an article about signs that it is time to update. I don't think most sites need a full site redesign which can be costly and time consuming. If you're using WordPress, Squarespace, or any of the popular providers, it is possible to select a new template and apply it with a minimum of revision.
It's not a con but I know clients who have seen their site refreshed with a few design changes and think of it as a "new" site. Templates and CSS make this possible.
So, why redesign a site if not for the sake of newness?
Sites that are a few years old may very well load slowly. Though the loading time may not even be noticed by the owner, every one-second delay in page load time can reduce customer satisfaction by 16 percent, says The Daily Egg. It's easy to test your speed using a free tool like PageSpeedInsights, which can reveal underlying design issues.
Has your branding changed? Consider the site's color palette, typography, logos, and images. Are they what you are currently using in other forms of marketing?
What is your bounce rate? If it is above 40%, it could be because of design issues, such as confusing navigation, low-quality content, or poor page load times.
More than half of global internet traffic now originates from a mobile device (BroadbandSearch). Is your website mobile-ready? Responsive design means the site will scale to different device screen sizes. New sites have this as the default but older sites probably aren't really mobile-friendly.
The home page is still usually the place for first impressions. You may want to start with that page ina redesign or with pages that your analytics tell you are getting the most hits.
How do you try to engage and convert visitors to leads or customers or returning visitors? Low conversion rates are a reason to redesign. Subscribing to emails still might work, though it's getting tired. A contact form is almost standard now. Forms with easy to click options via radio buttons and checklists speed up the process. Can you offer a free download of - depending on your business - an e-book, white paper, audio file, video, samples, coupons.
Many if not a majority of sites are now "secure" with an httpS protocol. Fear of a site marked as "insecure" by a browser can stop people from exploring further and hurt your SEO. (Hello, Google and their Chrome browser. Learn more about HTTPS and SSL on WordPress websites.)
Comments