5 signs your website needs updating

With a global online market that is always changing, it’s more important than ever to ensure that your company or organisation is increasing traffic and logging conversions by keeping up with current trends. Research has shown that you have less than 5 seconds to make a good impression before a consumer will leave your website. If your site is outdated, slow to load or fails to generate the orders you need, it could be time for a redesign. Here are some common signs that it’s time for an update.

Non-responsive The world is going mobile and consumers everywhere are now using mobile and smart devices as their primary tool for web browsing, searching and online purchasing. If you hope to stay relevant and engage with the growing mobile market, it’s vital that you upgrade your website to be responsive across all platforms and fully compatible with mobile. Rising bounce rate Touching on the point raised previously, first impressions are essential to converting more consumers. Bounce rate refers to the number of visitors that leave your site straight away before clicking on any other pages. If you find that your bounce rate has continued to increase, you may need to consider upgrading your site or changing its design. Bounce statistics can be viewed with Google Analytics. Non mobile-friendly sites will also have a high bounce rate so this is closely connected to point one – mobile users are impatient and if precious seconds tick by waiting for slow loading content to appear, you can expect your bounce rate to skyrocket. Lacking brand style The days where a website was a gimmick are long gone. Your site is part of your owned media collateral and should be a central part of your marketing strategy. It’s the face of your business and often, the source of your first impression so keep it updated, on message, current and filled with your expertise and knowledge. Long loading times Loading times play a huge part in the user experience and can drastically affect bounce rates. Research has shown that websites which load in under 5 seconds lead to much higher conversion figures. Always run regular performance tests to see what your websites average load time is. If it seems to be creeping up, look at how you can keep it down. Google has a series of free tools to help with this. Low search engine rankings Older websites that haven’t had an overhaul in years often experience issues when it comes to SEO and search engine rankings. This can usually be put down to duplicate pages, older HTML, unreadable content or an outdated keyword strategy. Whatever is making it difficult for search engines to analyse the web page and easier for your competitors to pass you, now is the time to rectify it.