For many entrepreneurs, tradespeople and self-employed people, a good website is an absolute must. Most customers use the internet to find out more about a company and compare different businesses and their websites before making initial contact or making a purchase. How the entrepreneur and their business are presented on the internet and whether the website also inspires confidence and conveys a professional image are crucial. Companies with poor websites are quickly eliminated from the search and are out of the race before it has even begun. Many website owners do not understand or unfortunately do not recognise that the time has come to invest in a new website. In this article, you will find 7 common reasons when a redesign makes sense and is businessly necessary.
More than 70% of Germans use the internet to research products and services before deciding on a provider.
If a company does not have a website, this means that many potential customers will not even be aware of the company and the company will not be considered in the decision-making process. If the website is outdated, poorly maintained or not designed attractively, this is usually even worse than not having a website at all. A poor website scares off potential customers and presents the company in a poor light. Which company wants to come across as ‘outdated’, ‘unprofessional’ or ‘unkempt’ at the first contact with potential customers? But that is exactly the impression that outdated and neglected websites leave on new prospects.
In this blog, you will find crucial aspects that speak in favour of a website redesign. If one or more of these points also applies to your website, you should consider creating a new website or having one created by a professional.
First impressions count. The most common reason for revising a website is an outdated or backward design. The internet in particular is developing faster and faster, and best practices in web design have changed dramatically in recent years. What was still highly modern and recommendable 7-8 years ago is now outdated and anything but recommendable. Yet the design is one of the most important factors for the success of a website.
In addition to the design, the timeliness of the content is also essential. Contact details, expertise, opening hours, range of services, etc. must always be up to date to avoid misunderstandings. The website should always reflect the current company, not the company as it appeared 5 years ago. Another important part is to ensure that the texts in the imprint, privacy policy, cookies, etc. are legally compliant so that they always meet the currently valid guidelines and do not allow for expensive warnings.
If you are still unsure whether your website can keep up with the current standards and the websites of your competitors, it is best to take a closer look at the websites of the best-known and most successful providers in your industry, especially those that appear at the top of Google's search results.
The competition is just a ‘click’ away. No matter what the reason for a long loading time is, it is never an advantage. Website visitors today no longer take the time to wait a long time before they can finally use a website. If the loading time is longer than 3 seconds, about 75% of users usually abort and search for the desired content on another website. The loading time also plays an important role for Google rankings and thus directly influences success. Long loading times cause visitors to leave the website, which in turn sends negative user signals to Google.
Therefore, make sure you keep loading times as short as possible. For example, by caching (temporarily storing) and optimising images and with clean website code, you can greatly improve the loading time of your website. For older websites, it is definitely advisable to revise the website from the ground up as part of the optimisation process.
Smartphones are ubiquitous and an integral part of our everyday lives. It is therefore not surprising that a great many people use their mobile phones to surf the internet. An increasing number of searches are being carried out via mobile devices. It is therefore important that every website is perfectly adapted to the different screen sizes of mobile devices.
If it is difficult for visitors to navigate your website or if the content is displayed incorrectly on a smartphone, you will lose many potential customers and send a bad user signal to Google. This will also worsen your website's ranking. The same applies here: if you have an existing, very old website, it usually makes more sense to revise everything from scratch. Tinkering with individual parts of an ancient website usually achieves little and is still time-consuming.
If you want to check whether your website is designed for mobile devices, you can use this free tool from Google: Google Search Console
The conversion rate is the ratio of visitors to the website and the number of transactions. A transaction is the desired goal that is to be achieved with the website (e.g. buy a product, make contact, subscribe to a newsletter). Example: If 8 out of 100 visitors to an online shop buy a product, the conversion rate is 8%.
It is right to have a website as a business owner, but it should of course also bring maximum benefit to the company. That is why it is important to optimise the website in terms of conversion. Even thousands of website visitors are of little use to the company if the conversion is poor. The conversion is influenced by many factors and does not always depend directly on the website itself. The conversion rate is mainly related to the following points:
• loading time
• brand strength
• user-friendliness
• security
• design
• website content
• optimisation for smartphones
The factors that can be improved by an appealing and optimised website should definitely be implemented. If as many visitors as possible fulfil the desired website goal, this usually has a very positive effect on the company's turnover.
If visitors can't find their way around your website and aren't convinced within the first few seconds, they'll leave the site and most likely not come back. Users should be able to find the information they are looking for on your website as easily as possible, quickly understand the added value of your offer and be motivated to take the desired action.
Of course, user-friendliness also has a significant influence on conversion. Don't put any obstacles in the visitor's way to carry out the desired action in an uncomplicated way. This is primarily ensured by a clear structure, familiar design, simple usability and convincing content. If you have doubts about any of these points regarding your homepage, a redesign or reorganisation should definitely be considered.
Websites that have not been updated for many years no longer meet today's technological standards. Many websites today are based on a modern content management system (CMS). This allows the content to be managed independently and expanded as needed. You no longer need the help of a programmer to enter new content, thus saving unnecessary costs. Do you not have the possibility, desire or time to edit content yourself and have to call on the help of a programmer for every little thing? Then you should think about a new website with a modern CMS.
A lot has happened in the area of security in recent years, too. For example, since 2018, it has been mandatory for websites that collect personal data to have SSL encryption. This encrypts communication with the server and ensures that the data is safe from access by third parties. Many websites with contact forms, newsletter sign-ups or similar functions where personal data is collected do not yet have SSL encryption and thus risk an expensive warning.
To optimise your website, it should definitely be monitored regularly to identify data-driven optimisation potentialfor the target group or website visitors. If, for example, you know which content is particularly relevant, where visitors come from and where potential drops offs occur, you can align content based on this and provide visitors with even more relevant content.
Important questions that can be answered with the help of good website analysis tools are:
• How do visitors get to my site?
• For which keywords does the website have a good ranking in search results?
• Which subpage do visitors find particularly interesting?
• Is the content on my website actually read or viewed, or do visitors leave the site immediately?
• How many visitors come to my site each month?
By continuously monitoring your website, you can learn a lot about your target audience. Without the option of analysis, you will remain in the dark and have no idea whether your website is even well received by your target group. If your website does not offer the option of easily integrating common analysis tools, it is definitely time to update it.
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