5 Signs Your Website Needs a Design Overhaul

Your website is often the place of your potential customer's first impression of your business. When they are pulling out their phones and searching on Google for "burgers near me" or "jewelry store near me," the first thing they look at is your website. Local searches nearly make up 50% of all Google searches. Other mind-boggling search engine optimization (SEO) statistics (s) include that 70% of marketers view SEO as more effective than social media Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads and 49% of marketers report that organic search has the best ROI of any marketing channel.

This proves that online presence is getting more important by the day. If design features look outdated or your website is poorly designed, you may be dropping customers like flies before they even have a chance to learn about what you have to offer. As a small business, you should be taking advantage of this opportunity to build your brand high. That means you should create a website that's high quality and reflects your brand message. Here are 5 signs to look out for when auditing your website, so you can make the wisest decision for your brand and your customers.

Your Site Doesn't Align With Your Brand And Your Story

Over the years, organizations will refine their focus, hone in on a niche, or will completely shift gears after spending years in a business. If you adapted your service or product offerings or changed your target audience, your website should accurately reflect those changes, so you can position yourself correctly in the marketplace.

Even if your products, services, or target audience have remained the same, it's important to make sure your site is aligned with your organization's vision, values, and the deeper purpose you serve. If not, you will be turning away your target customers.

Micro-messaging deeply impacts how your customers perceive you; it's not as simple as making slight changes to your "About Us" or home page. Before deciding on making any changes, you must ask yourself: does it correctly portray what I offer and what I stand for? Pay attention to the small details in the entire site such as the header, footer, navigation headings, dropdown boxes, and even error pages.

Your Site Isn't Supporting A Frictionless Customer Experience

An unpleasant user experience is often a "silent killer" for most websites because most organizations aren't aware of it until a customer voices their opinion. This may not be as simple as just taking a look and it may require you to talk with existing customers, and prospects you're currently speaking with, or create a focus group to go through your site and note sticking points of where your site's lacking.

Questions you may want to ask your customers include:

• Were you able to find what you need on the website?
• Was it easy to navigate?
• What was the page loading speed?
• How did you feel about the aesthetics?
• Were you able to complete the action you intended to?

You could use these answers to identify common sticking points to make improvements, and you can also compare those answers with website analytics data to see if there are any similarities. When are the actions completed or when do your visitor's bail? Are your users engaging with certain pages? This can provide you with further details about whether or not you should redesign your site.

Oh, before we conclude this section, here's something you may want to think about: an online store. If you're in an industry where people are selling products or services online, then it might be a no-brainer to have an online store. Selling online or having an online store gives you a great opportunity to connect with your customers on a deeper level, which can lead to more sales and more loyal customers.

Also, many websites don't have or have outdated contact information. So maybe you should also add your business email address so customers can communicate with you.

Your Site Isn't Supporting The Content You Currently Have

Websites are also hubs for storing important company information. That's why a website must support the type of content you're currently producing. For example, if you were to have great motion background for your site but it slows down your site loading speed or fails to load, it will result in a frustrating user experience. Rather than enhancing your brand image, it will damage it.

During your site audit, you should be monitoring site load times, bounce rates, and user feedback. If you're getting negative feedback on those metrics, it may be time to revisit the technology behind your site.

Your Website Looks Technologically Outdated

Hey business owners, did you know that 75% of people judge the credibility of your business solely based on your website's design?

There are 4 ways in which a website can communicate trustworthiness to its potential customers:

1. Quality of your web design
2. Up-front disclosure
3. Comprehensive and current content
4. Connection to the rest of the web

An outdated website possesses features like these:

• Use of Flashing GIFs or Banners
• Text-heavy webpages
• Lack of engaging visuals
• Pop-ups everywhere!

When a website looks outdated, it conveys to potential customers that you're not keeping up with the latest trends and technologies and you just don't care about your brand. This causes them to question your credibility and whether or not you are worthy of doing business with them. A study by Stanford University found that 46.15% of people said that the design of a website is the number one factor in determining the credibility of the company.

Your Competitor Is Doing Better Than You

Your website doesn't have to look super fancy and ornamental, but if you're not in line with your competitors, you're most likely losing leads and sales to them.

Here are some competitive metrics to take a look at:

1) Their SEO Is Better

If your products/services or your business aren't at the top of search results, you may need to adjust your website & SEO strategy. This could often involve redesign of the site to improve informational architecture, mobile experience, page load speed, or CMS.

2) They Have Better Design, Functionality & Content

When visiting your competitor's site and you suddenly realize their design and functionality is better than yours, that's a major sign that you may want to get a professional website designed by a professional agency. There are many out there but why not try Mac Digital?

If you're not getting the results you want for your business because of your site problems, then you may consider redesigning it or building a new website from scratch.

A website's essential to your lead generation, branding, and reputation, so you may want to consider consulting a professional opinion like Mac Digital. It doesn't hurt and it's free. Feel free to reach out by booking an appointment or give us a call at (973) 803-7132. We'll host a brief discovery call to see how we can help you address your pain points and see if we are a good fit to help you solve your problems!

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