Time For a Website Revamp?

by Florin Aldea Web Designer

Is this situation quite familiar to you?

You had a website designed for you, or by you, and it was great at the start. After that, you began to get super-busy, and you simply didn’t have the time to keep updating it and refreshing it. You know that you need to put the time aside to revamp it, but it’s something which keeps getting put on the back burner.

What happens next?

It never gets revamped!

Are you nodding your head?

This is a situation which may small businesses find themselves in, but the important thing to remember here is that your website is vital, and if you don’t keep it up to date and fresh, you’re falling way behind the competition; you’re basically throwing money away!

So, with all that aside, you finally do make the time to revamp your website. What do you need to know?

Here’s a few pointers.

· Do you need to revamp the layout? Has the feel of your business changed at all? Do you think the current layout could be changed to make it easier to use, or better to look at? Remember that your website needs to be attractive and easy to navigate, but it also needs to sum up the feel of your business. It’s no good going for a bright colourful layout, if you are a business which is dealing with something a little more muted, such as funeral directing for example. That is a far-out example, but it does sum it up quite well.

· Is your site mobile-friendly? Nowadays we look on our phones and tablets much more than we do on a desktop or laptop, and that means that if your site isn’t optimised to be mobile-friendly, you’re missing out in a big way. You need to make sure your website has a design which is responsive to mobile devices.

· Are all the links working well? Check each and every one of them, and if you find any broken links fix them; if you find any links which are simply not needed, delete them. Your site needs to be streamlined to make it easy to use, but it also needs to work each and every time.

· Is there a clear contact/call to action page? You don’t need your visitors having to search endlessly for the details on how to contact you, nor do you need them to find a complicated buying process. Keep it simple, and easy to find.

· Is your content SEO optimised? If you have online content, which you certainly should have, is it optimised for SEO purposes? We are of course talking about properly researched topics and keywords which are naturally inserted into the text. This is vital, but it is also only one part of SEO as an overall topic.

If You Have no Idea Where to Start?

If the reason you have been putting off revamping your website is because you simply don’t have a clue what you’re doing, it’s important to be honest about this fact and hire the skills of someone who does know.

Outsourcing your website update needs is not a failing, it will turn out to be a major strength, because the bottom line is that you need a top quality website to stand any chance of competing in this rather cutthroat world we call business.

If your website is poorly designed, out of date, hard to use, and isn’t at all relevant to who you are as a business, visitors are going to take one look at it and move on, probably to your competitor. Of course, you should also remember that businesses evolve and change over time, so it may be that your site is working really well and is totally digital marketing optimised, but does it sum up the ethos of who you are as a business right now?

If not, you need to revamp and make it reflect your true values.