When To Build A New Website

When to build a new website?

Some point in time every website owner asks the same question: ‘should i build a new website or not?’.

I know I’ve asked myself this question many times!

There are almost 1.8 billion websites on the internet right now, and the number is continuously growing 🤫

Many of these websites are underperforming for a variety of reasons, and businesses are struggling to attract traffic, create quality leads and generate conversions.

A functional and responsive website design is a hugely important factor when it comes to a customer’s initial contact with a company.

There are many reasons why your website might not be fulfilling its potential. These include a lack of optimization, outdated technology, broken links, etc.

We’ve dealt with these problems and more in our list of the 10 telltale signs it might be time for a website overhaul:

1. Your Business is Ready to Take the Next Step Toward Growth

Your website may feel good enough for the time being, but if you feel that your company is ready to grow, you have an answer to ‘when to build a new website’.

If you’re able to make the right changes and use your website properly, it can become a highly useful tool for online growth.

You and your employees might be passionate about the success of your company, and you might be working around the clock to make it happen, but in today’s world, it will be hard to get anywhere without a website that can backup all of that effort.

2. Your Website is Broken

This might well have been the first sign on the list, as it is probably the most obvious, and perhaps even the most important one. However, we wanted to start on a positive note, which is why we talked about growth potential first.

Now it’s time to talk about the first negative sign it might be time for a website redesign — it’s not working properly.

You’ve probably seen more than a few websites that exhibit problems like unresponsive buttons and difficult-to-load images.

These elements can not only negatively impact customer experience, and therefore their opinion of your company as a whole, but they can also directly impact SEO and contribute to high bounce rates.

3. You’re Not Paying Attention to Keywords

Keywords are what helps your customers find your website organically. If your site doesn’t use enough keywords in your area of business or uses the wrong ones, you could be missing out on a lot of traffic.

If you’re thinking about adding keywords to your site, try starting a blog. It could work as a great way to establish your company as a thought leader as well.

Also, try improving your website’s meta descriptions, SEO titles, image alt tags and use keywords naturally.

4. Your Restaurant Menu is in PDF Format

If you’re running a restaurant website, and your menu on the website still links to a .pdf file, it’s time for some changes. While it technically gets the job done in terms of delivering information, it has long been an outdated way to present your menu.

The best restaurants nowadays use CMS to display their menus, which makes it available on the website itself without linking out. This means users can sort and search for items they prefer, or those that fit their dietary restrictions.

5. Your Website is Just Ugly

Auch.

We hate to break it to you, but if you’re not sure your website looks great, chances are other people don’t like it either. Functionality is great, but it is equally important to make your website look good.

A quick facelift focusing on beautifying your site can go a long way toward helping your business look more reputable and professional.

6. You’re Not Getting as Many Calls as You Used to

As we mentioned earlier, traditional phonebooks have gone into the history books. In the 21st century, we use Google Business Listings, social media and websites as phone books.

Most consumers are bound to make a judgment on the credibility of your entire company based on its website, so it is important to make sure your site looks as professional as possible and provides readily available contact information.

7. Rebranding Might Be Necessary

Telling the difference between a lackluster site, and a very good one, is not difficult. It takes most experienced internet users only a few seconds to determine whether a website can help them with what they are looking for.

This is why it is important to let your brand shine through from the moment it shows up on the screen. Images that reflect your brand and business properly, a clear color scheme and the right balance of professionalism and personality will usually do the trick.

8. Your Analytics Are Showing a High Bounce Rate

The whole reason behind having a website should be to provide visitors with accurate and useful information that can guide them to the next step — buying a product, contacting you or coming to your store.

We use the term “bounce rate” to refer to the percentage of people who only look at one page of your website before leaving. If this percentage is too high, this could indicate that your site is difficult to navigate, unprofessional or doesn’t provide the right information.

9. Your Website is Unresponsive on Mobile

By the end of 2019, mobile website traffic accounted for 52.6% of all online traffic, and this statistic does not even include tablets. This means a majority of people are looking at websites on their phones, rather than tablets or computers.

This should be a good enough reason to reconsider the mobile-friendliness of your website and make it as snappy as possible on mobile devices.

10. You Are Using Outdated Technology

If your website is still in Flash, you should definitely reconsider doing an overhaul. Search engines like Yahoo, Bing and Google will stop reading Flash on December 31, 2020, which is going to make it an SEO disaster, and it is already not supported by iPads or iPhones.

HTML5 completely took over the role of Flash when it comes to animations and interactive features, plus it is completely compatible with all smartphones and browsers.

As you can see, there are many reasons why you’d want to build a new website.

Do you want to get inspiration before you start thinking about a new website? Have a look at these helpful articles:

When To Build A New Website – 10 Signs It’s Time 🚀