7 signs that it’s time for a new website

Think of your website as a 24/7 shop front for your business. Having a highly functional, speedy website that looks fantastic is essential for increasing your conversion rate, building a strong brand reputation and getting customers. It’s all about first impressions! If your website looks dated and is difficult to use, visitors are less likely to purchase your products or services. So, how do you know when it’s time for a new website?

Here are 7 signs that it’s time for a new website.

Making changes becomes difficult or costly

If you find it difficult to make simple changes to your website, or have to contact a web developer every time you want to add a blog or edit page content, there is a much easier way to do things! With a Content Management System (CMS) such as WordPress, making changes to your website is easy, and doesn’t require you to contact an experienced web developer. Having a WordPress website means you can easily add new landing pages and blog posts yourself, without any hassle.

Your website looks dated

If your web pages, content and the overall website design looks dated, this can be hugely off-putting to potential customers. 75% of people say that website aesthetics play a role in how credible they think a business is. Think about the Cariad Marketing website. If you landed on our website and it looked like it was built in 2010 with an outdated font and pixelated images, you certainly wouldn’t be likely to choose us for web design or digital marketing services. Your website is a strong reflection of your brand and business, so you want it to look as modern and professional as possible!

It isn’t mobile friendly or responsive

Since 2019, Google has carried out mobile-first indexing for websites. This is because the majority of users now carry out Google searches on their mobile device rather than on desktop. In 2021, mobile devices generated 54.8% of global website traffic. Responsive web design means that your website will change dimensions to fit the size of the screen that it is being viewed on, improving the user experience. If your website isn’t mobile-friendly or responsive, this means the site is outdated, doesn’t offer a good user experience, and won’t be able to keep up with the competition in the search engine rankings.

Traffic is high, but conversions are low

Do you find yourself racking your brain when checking Google Analytics, trying to figure out why you have such a low conversion rate in comparison to the volume of traffic visiting your site? This could indicate a problem with the website design or overall user experience.

You could be doing everything right in terms of digital marketing and driving traffic to your website, but you’re doing your brand no favours if, once on the site, the user finds it slow to load, difficult to navigate or it may just have an overall outdated look and feel. In fact, 42% of consumers say they’ll leave a website that doesn’t function well.

Think of slightly older websites you’ve visited that have loads of links and content and feel a bit ‘all over the place’ because they’ve had so many things added and changed over the years. If yours is like that, and doesn’t have a clear content hierarchy or good calls to action, it’s time to upgrade to something new!

Bounce rate is high

A bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who land on a page on your website and then leave without continuing on to other pages on the site. Ideally, you want your bounce rate to be as low as possible, particularly on pages that are designed to convert visitors.

A high bounce rate is most likely a result of poor design or user experience. If the website page is slow, or it’s difficult for the user to navigate or find what they are looking for, they are more likely to leave without visiting the rest of the site. It can also happen because the design of the page is bad or the content is poor. If your bounce rate is between 70-90% consistently throughout the site, it’s definitely time to consider a new website.

Poor website speed

One of the big issues with having an old website is slow page loading time. This could be happening for a number of reasons, including:

• Code bloat
• Unminified code
• Render blocking code
• Unoptimised images
• Too many third party tools or plugins
• A low quality server

These days, people expect websites to load instantly, and they won’t hang around if they don’t. In fact, for every additional second of time it takes a webpage to load, conversion rates drop by just over 4%. 53% of mobile site visitors will leave a page if it takes longer than three seconds to load. Not only is a slow website speed bad for user experience, Google also factors this into their algorithm for search engine ranking and penalises sites with slow speeds.

You are constantly being contacted by customers with simple questions

A well designed website should always include enough information for customers to be able to find what they are looking for. We always suggest including a comprehensive list of FAQs on the website, and sometimes on main navigation pages. Not only does this help to address any questions the user may have while they are on the site and thinking about making a purchase, it’s also great for SEO! You should also make sure that you have a contact information page which is integrated with Google Maps, so that customers are able to find your brick and mortar store easily.

If you’ve read through these signs and are getting a creeping feeling that your old website may be the reason why you are struggling to convert traffic into sales, take a look at what our brilliant team of web design experts have to offer!