Every brand, every business, and every company needs a website. It is your clients’ one stop shop to learn about you; find the product they want; and buy into your business. Think about your experience going out to eat, buying clothes online, or even finding a place to get your haircut. If that website doesn’t look trustworthy, you’re going to check the next one. If that website does not load quickly, you’ll refresh the page once and then move on. If you can’t find what you are looking for, you’re not going to hunt it down, you are clicking on the next search result. It is vital for your business that your website pulls people in instead of pushing them away. Here is how you can find out if it’s time for a change.

1. Not Mobile Friendly

Think about your website like a storefront where customers can easily go in and out of and browse what you have to offer. If you owned a storefront and half of the people who tried to open your door had to yank on the handle as hard as possible to get in, you would fix your door. Well, studies show that almost half of all web traffic are mobile users. If half of your customers have difficulty getting into and exploring your website, you would fix your website. An unfriendly mobile interface is not conducive to customers, let alone repeat customers.

2. Brand Change (Logo, Name, Color Palette, etc.)

If your business has changed anything significant with your image and your website has not been updated, a new website is definitely in order. It looks very unprofessional to have different logos on different platforms. If Facebook has a different logo or name than your website—customers are going to question how trustworthy and reliable your business really is.

3. Bounce Rate is Particularly High

Bounce rate, according to Google, is how often users on your website leave after seeing only a single page. If your bounce rate is above the industry average, you need to make some changes. This is why it is very important to make sure each page of your website is engaging to your visitors. If they enter your website from a product page or an “About Me” section, they need to be staying and checking out other areas. The longer you can keep a user on your website, the better the chance they give you their business. You can check your bounce rate through the Google Analytics tool easily.

4. Users Spend Less Than 2 Minutes

Ideally, we want our visitors to spend as much time as possible on our website. Better session duration means customers are shopping longer, or are generally more engaged, which means Google and advertisers like our website better. If you have avoided the visitor from “bouncing” off your website, you have already jumped the first hurdle, but you need them to stay. If visitors are not spending very long, it probably means the content isn’t very engaging. This does not necessarily have to be text; media is another great way to keep visitors interested.

5. Difficult to Navigate

The best websites are the simplest. Whatever you’re selling should never be hard to find. Wherever your blog posts are should not be difficult to locate. Text should be clear, legible, and indicative of what sits behind the curtain. The fewer the clicks a visitor needs to take, the better. If your visitor only visits two pages, but stays for ten minutes, you have done your job.

6. CMS isn’t SEO friendly

Some content management systems are still not SEO (Search Engine Optimization) friendly and this is bad. SEO is one of the best ways small businesses can attract visitors and customers and if your content management system does not make this an intuitive process, you should consider rebuilding and using a different system.

7. Slow Loading Times

If visitors are waiting for pages to load, more often than not, they’re not going to wait. Your website is just one of many options for a consumer and websites need to do everything to keep them there, not drive them away. Why wait for a slow website when the next link will give them the same information without the delay?

8. Old and Outdated

An old and outdated website probably does not look the best, but more importantly, an old website might not have the proper security measures as newly made websites would. Security is of the utmost importance and website owners need to do everything they can to keep their data safe.

Pin It on Pinterest

Call Now Button