Let’s not go around it too much. A website should be updated at least every 3-4 years, take or leave. It is not written anywhere, it is common sense. The problem is that many companies still do not meet this deadline on time, either because they are too busy in other things or because they believe they do not have enough resources. To make it easier, we’ve created a list of 7 “alarm bells” that can help you understand that you can no longer postpone your website’s restyling.
1. YOU HAVE AN OLD WEBSITE
It may seem mundane, but it’s far from obvious. The first real reason to redo your website is because you have an old site. Is your website responsive? Does it have outdated graphics? Does it work well? Ask yourself questions. If you still use the same design as you used 5 years ago, then you have a problem. From year to year, the way people browse the Internet and interact with websites changes and evolves. Your site must evolve at the same speed, otherwise people will simply stop using it. B. A good example is Flash. In the early 2000s Flash was the standard of technology and so, for years, many sites have relied on this system. But Flash was designed in the desktop era, and when mobile became “the Platform”, the use of Flash automatically became obsolete and many browsers stopped supporting it. In other words, if your site still uses any other outdated technology, you should definitely start thinking about a restyling of your website.
2. YOUR TEMPLATE LIMITS YOU
Website templates are a real boon (especially for small businesses that have limited resources and knowledge when they start) for their ease of installation, management, customization and (why not) cost. But, you know, a fish cannot become bigger than its aquarium. At some point, to really grow you will need a more spacious website, less limited, that can be customized exactly as you want. Leaving the template site behind (or at least expand it) offers you a multitude of advantages: being able to host more powerful web applications, use more complex graphics, unleash your unbridled creativity or simply add more content (a basic requirement, for example, for e-commerce sites that want to constantly expand their product range).
3. YOU ARE CHANGING (OR EXPANDING) YOUR TARGET
The restyling of a site can (and in some cases must) be dictated very often by a commercial decision. Targeting a new market, a new segment of it or expanding it means having to equip yourself with new visual elements and a new usability in order to adapt better to the new target audience. Taking the example of age, imagine that you also want to include millennials (young people from 18 to 35) in your target group which until then was only made up of over 40. You understand that the same interface and the same way of communicating previously will never fit with the same effectiveness. Different users for demographic, language or cultural reasons have different needs and tastes regarding visual effects, text shades, interfaces, interactions, search keywords and even the infrastructure of your site. If the target change is substantial, you will need to rethink and redesign your website in order to adapt.
4. YOU ARE IN THE REBRANDING FASE
However, change does not necessarily have to respond to external requirements. You can also voluntarily want to give a drastic change to the image of your business. Whether you want to send a different message, take off some years or boost your business, the rebranding phase is one of the best times to rethink the design of your site, which will change accordingly. Even minor changes such as a color scheme of the logo can be the right excuse to think about a complete restyling of the site. Subtle aesthetic change can bring great benefits and increase the feeling of consistency, echoing your new image.
5. YOU CANNOT UPDATE IT FREQUENTLY
The days when it was necessary to know how to program to manage a site are over. The growing popularity of WordPress and other content management systems (CMS) shows that there is a vast market of people who want to be able to easily control what’s on their website. Google understood and rode this trend right from the start. Sites that are updated more frequently are rewarded by the giant of Mountain View with higher positions in the SERP and it goes without saying that the redesign of your website will also bring benefits in terms of SEO. If you’re still afraid that changing something on your site will crash it, you’ll be pleasantly surprised how easy and practical it is to manage the content of your site with a good CMS.
6. YOU DON’T FEEL UP TO DATE WITH THE LATEST WEB DESIGN TRENDS
The restyling of a website does not always and only result from a bare and raw need. Sometimes it can have more “superficial” reasons. Let’s explain better. Think about the situation in which you are going to buy a car. Here, just the way you would think twice to buy your next car from a salesman dressed in a bit trashy and old style (regardless of the state of the car) Similarly, people think twice before doing business with a non-appealing looking site. It’s pure aesthetics, of course, but the first impressions are often decisive and if you really want to be always updated on the latest trends from a graphic point of view, rethinking your site (even with a certain frequency) is something that you can not think about.
7. YOU ARE NOT ACHIEVING YOUR GOALS
Last warning, but perhaps most important of all: your site is not doing its job. What is the purpose of your website? Drive traffic? Contacts? Conversions? Newsletter subscriptions? If you’re not achieving the conversion rate or traffic you set for yourself, if your landing page bounce rate is too high, or the percentage of newsletter subscriptions is too low, maybe (indeed, definitely) the site itself is the problem. It is said many times, but as much is taken for granted: a well-designed web design can positively influence conversions and attract more visitors. If your website is not performing well, you must definitely rethink and change your choices from scratch. All with a single thought in mind: design at the service of the user.
Did you recognize one or more signals on your site?
If your site looks outdated, is slow, not responsive or simply no longer reflects the evolution of your business, it’s time to take action. A restyling is not just an aesthetic fact: it is a strategic investment to improve performance, usability and online credibility. Contact us to find out how we can revamp your website and turn it into an effective tool for attracting and converting customers.
