Do you need a new website?

Is your website performing as well as it could be? Does it project the best image for your business? Is it generating you enough leads? These are some of the questions you should be asking yourself if you are unsure whether it’s time for a new website.

Your online presence is a vital part of your business and your website is probably the first place your potential customers are going to visit to find out more about what you do, so it may be time for a refresh.

Before you decide whether you should dive into a website overhaul, we want to make sure you are on the right tracks when evaluating your existing website using our pointers below.

For any website to perform effectively it’s important to determine a strategy and set goals that you want to achieve for your business through your website. An attractive, fully-functional website might seem like the best thing in the world, but the key to great website design is to ensure it has a well thought out strategy behind it.

You should asses your website strategy by asking yourself the following:

1. Do my visitors know who I am the minute they land on my website?
2. Are my services presented in the clearest, most informative way?
3. Are there opportunities for potential customers to get in touch with me throughout the website?
4. Does the structure and look and feel of my website appeal to my target audience?
5. Is my website easy to navigate for users?

If the answer to all or even some of the above is no, then it’s time for a new website.

Once you’ve got your strategy ironed out, the next step is to consider the specifics. One of these is usability, and this is crucial when it comes to the effectiveness of your website. Offering a poor user experience to your visitors could result in abandonment from your site and a loss of leads – you need to make practical considerations for site usability and think about as if you were the end user navigating through your website. Carry out a round of user testing and check for the following:

• Your most important pages are in your main site navigation – this is the first place users will look
• Key information is easy to get to and doesn’t involve more clicks than it needs to
• There are no broken links to any internal pages or external sites
• The speed of your website is fast – no one likes waiting for a website to load
• Your site performs perfectly across all browsers, screen sizes and device types

If there are issues with any of the above on your website, this could be the reason why you are not performing as well online as you expected.

One thing that has more of an impact on users in 2017 is responsive web design. Based on this year’s statistics, Google says 61% of users are unlikely to return to a website if they had trouble accessing on mobile, and 40% visit a competitor’s site instead. Responsive design is smart, and ensures your customers, no matter what your target audience, experience your site in its fullest form on any device or screen size they access it from. After all, tablets and mobile devices are taking over and account for a huge amount of web users, so you want to make sure you are part of that bracket.

You need to leave a great first impression on your visitors and potential customers. An out of date website could leave a “bad taste” in their mouths and not present your business in the best light – a modern, well-designed website will create a lasting impression on your audience, creating trust and stability between you and the end user. Keeping your website current, clear and well-aligned with your company brand will get people used to your style and top your competitors’ websites. At the end of the day, it’s you who wants to be getting as many enquiries as possible which you should be pushing for through your website so you’re always one step ahead of your competitors.

No one likes to read boring, irrelevant content and if you have a lot of this on your website then it’s highly likely that your visitors will switch off the moment they land on your webpage. You need to understand your target audience and make sure your website content is engaging and relevant to the services you are offering – be as informative as possible and focus on quality over quantity. Review all content throughout your website and ask yourself and your team members the following:

• Is my tone of voice and writing style consistent throughout my website?
• Is my text readable? Does it flow naturally?
• Is my content interesting and is it serving a purpose?
• Is it informative and does it explain my services well?
• Do all pages contain the right amount of content?

In addition to this, if you wanted to view the performance of your site content from a statistical point of view you can do so using website tools such as Google Analytics – this will allow you to drill down to individual pages to see how much traffic you are getting and any pages that have a particularly high bounce rate.

For more tips on producing great content for the web, you can read our content blog article here.

For your site to rank well in search engines you need to have the basics cemented first so your website structure is right, it’s mobile-friendly, loads fast and contains fresh, relevant content. The whole reason you are online is so your customers can find you there – so what’s the point if you’re not ranking well in search results for your target terms? Search engine optimisation is an ongoing process and can be used to better position your business, particularly against your competitors, and if your existing website is out of date and doesn’t perform well technically then it would be difficult to undertake SEO work on your site and see results. This is where you need to be considering a new website that ticks all of those boxes if search rank positions are something you’d like to see your business improve in.

To allow your company to compete in a forever-changing industry that is the web, it’s vital that you offer a great online experience for your customers. If your current website resulted in negative answers when reading through this article, then it’s time to do something about it.

Get in touch with us today on 01709 470001 or send us a message here to talk to us about your new website project.