A website is the first point of contact with your company. A business website is the most important element in online marketing and is even more vital than the business social media profiles. Your website showcases the uniqueness and integrity of your brand and convinces people to patronize you. According to a Missouri University Study, it takes less than two-tenths of a second for an online visitor to form a first opinion of your brand once they have viewed your company's website.

In the same way that cars, smartphones and other things go out of date, websites can also become outdated. Does your website still serve its purpose effectively? Here are 6 reasons why you should consider redesigning your website.

Not Mobile Friendly
If your website is not responsive or mobile friendly, it might be time to redesign it. A responsive website is one that is easily navigable and accessible across different devices and screen sizes. A responsive design provides good user experience on all devices. Mobile usage of websites has overtaken desktop usage. According to reputable statistics portal Statista, 52% of visits to websites originate from mobile devices. Hence it is important for a website to be usable and easily navigable on mobile devices.

Google can now tell if your website is mobile friendly or not and it affects how your website is discovered when searched online. Google has even provided a tool where you can test if your website is mobile friendly.

SEO Ranking is Poor
If your website is not performing well in ranking compared to competitors then you should consider redesigning the website. Your company’s website can be a very good source of lead generation and revenue for your business. If the ranking is poor then you might be missing out on some revenue. It is important to carry out an SEO audit first to determine the strong and weak aspects of the current website. Things to consider when redesigning the new website is the page load speed, the keywords, custom page Urls, meta descriptions, title tags, alt tags, relevant content and links. A website’s SEO ranking can also be influenced by mobile friendly it is.

Website Performance is bad and Visits are not converting into Sales.
The performance of your website really matters. The average online consumer expects your pages to load in two seconds or less, after three seconds, up to 49% will abandon your site. The slower your site is, the more likely that the visitor will abandon it, and the fewer time spent on your website the less your chances of converting visitors to customers. 88% of online consumers are unlikely to return to a site after a bad experience. You can use tools such as Gtmetrix and Google Pagespeed Insights to check your website speed.

Some websites are not been maintained and have broken links or features that are not working properly. You can measure your website’s average Bounce Rate and if it is high you need to figure out what the issue is and redesign the website to make visitors stick around more and take the actions your business wants such as making purchases.

Website does not reflect your Brand and Service Offerings
Redesigning your website presents an opportunity to properly showcase your brand and services. Your website is the 247 sales representative for your brand, hence it should capture the essence of the business, present your services and project a good brand image.

The website content such as images, logo, copy should be consistent with your current brand style guide. A new design might be needed to communicate your values better and get the credibility of customers. You should also consider a redesign if the list of services that you provide has changed since the previous website design. If your website is not up to date it can prevent you from getting clients from online marketing because the required awareness for your services has not been created.

If your Website cannot be easily updated
If you desire to greater control over your website, and want to be able to perform activities such as updating and uploading content then you should consider a new design. Your website might have been built a long time ago or with outdated technology which did not provide an easy means to manage and upload content. With a website redesign, a Content Management System such as WordPress can be used to make it easy for website owners to operate and upload content without possessing coding skills or technical knowledge.

Website looks old and outdated
With design trends changing from time to time, it is important to design a new and improved website to attract customers. For your website to benefit the business, it has to give a good first impression. New designs can be based on feedback gotten from users on the experience and make the websites more usable. If your competitors’ websites have been redesigned recently and become more functional, they might be getting ahead of you with regards to online marketing.

Conclusion

Having a beautiful, usable and responsive website will help you drive traffic and engage customers for better results and increase your profits. You need a website that can help your business stand out among the competition and rank well in Google search results. If your website falls within any of the above category, then it is time to get an expert to update the design to a unique and user friendly one that can convert visitors into customers.

This article was originally posted on Helithdigital.com. (http://helithdigital.com/why-your-website-needs-to-be-redesigned/)

Author: Oladapo Babarinde is a partner at Helith Digital, a Web design Company based in Lagos. Helith Digital helps businesses win online by creating websites that attract visitors and convert to customers and more sales.