Think your website is fit for purpose? Think again. While your website might have been effective when it was first launched, it’s likely that there are improvements that can be made to help keep it up to date and relevant. Like fashion, web pages are subject to trends and new developments, and it’s important that your business keeps up. Take a look at the following reasons why it might be time to overhaul your website.

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You’ve had the same website for years

While familiarity can be a good thing, overhauling your website’s appearance can be a welcome change for visitors. Website design has come a long way over the last few years, so if you want to stay ahead of the game – you’re going to need to give your website a makeover. There are some great examples of websites with amazing homepages to inspire you and to give you an idea of the sort of content you’re up against. It’s also important that your website works across different platforms to appeal to the growing number of people who use mobile phones and tablets to get online. If your business relies on people visiting your website then giving it an update will be a worthwhile investment.

It’s easier to design and manage a website

In the past, building a website was a laborious and clunky task – you’d need to rely on someone with a good grasp of complicated coding and so on to create a website from scratch to suit your needs. Today, putting a website together is a much simpler task, with some easy-to-use content management systems available to make creating and updating websites a breeze. A WordPress development company can help design the look and features of your website, before handing the reigns over to you to update the content where necessary. Websites are also cheaper to run than they used to be, so your business can get online much quicker than it might have done ten years ago.

Your website isn’t getting you noticed

Websites can fulfil many purposes for a business, and one of them is to get noticed and hopefully encourage sales/leads from customers. People use the internet to search for services, but if your website isn’t optimised to catch their attention – you could be missing out on a lot of potential engagement. Try searching for your company’s website online using search terms you’d normally associate with your business – if your website isn’t near the top of your results then you’ll need to add some SEO (Search Engine Optimisation|) to help make your website easier to find. SEO is easier than you might think, and it’s worth taking a look at an SEO basics guide to help you get started.

It’s important that you learn how to monitor your website traffic to help you learn where people are finding out about you. This way you can use your best-performing avenues (Google, social media, etc.) to drive even more visitors to your website. Applications like Google Analytics make it easy to get information about your website’s traffic, so there’s no need to hire a specialist data analyst to work it all out.

Your website has too much content

A comprehensive website is a useful asset to visitors, but the way it’s presented can make it difficult for them to find what they’re looking for. Advances in social media and how we use technology means that the average attention span of a web user is now just eight seconds. This means that your homepage has to stand out to capture the attention of a web user and keep them there. If your homepage is a wall of written text, you might want to think about how you can break this down and focus on more visual elements instead.

Current content trends mean that users spend far less time reading information and instead prefer to watch video or listen to audio. If you want to engage with web users, you might want to consider creating a content strategy that helps you present your information in a much more creative way. This content can also be used to promote your work via social media to draw more visitors to your website.

You might be wondering just how important is your company’s web design, but in today’s super competitive market – it could be what makes or breaks your business. Think of your website as the storefront of your business – it needs to be attractive and unique while also offering a glimpse of what your business is about. If it doesn’t look good from the outside, people won’t stick around long enough to go inside. Consider overhauling your website and help give your business a boost.