websitedesignMany first impressions of your business are through your website, which is why it’s so important that it have a professional appearance, be functional and be up to date. Even if you gave your website a complete overhaul a year or two ago, it may already be time to redesign again. Here are some of the most common indicators that you would benefit from redesigning your business website.

1. Outdated Overall Appearance:

Visual design trends change, and what looked good to you a few years ago may be outdated now. If you leave your site like this, visitors will notice the difference between yours and competitors who have kept up with design trends. It could end up hurting your business, so it’s time to overhaul the design to give it a more crisp appearance. Find someone skilled in small business Web design and have them shine up your site, either by tweaking the current design or starting from scratch.

2. Pages are Cluttered:

If you’ve been adding updates to your site under the old design, you may end up with pages that are now cluttered with too many tabs, menus or features. It’s time to take a look at the design of the site as a whole and maybe shift the way you organize content to give pages a more crisp appearance. You want visitors to be able to find what they’re looking for without being distracted by obsolete or unnecessary features.

3. Static Content that’s not Relevant:

Your static content that’s built into the site design might not be relevant for your business anymore, especially if you don’t have the tools to update your site regularly. The best way to get rid of it is to redesign the site and implement tools that allow you to keep up with updates in the future. You want to be able to make changes without relying on a developer.

4. A Static Desktop Website:

Some businesses see as many as half of their visitors coming from mobile devices rather than traditional desktop or laptop computers. If your website is not optimized for these devices, it may not be viewable at all for these people, or it may be difficult to navigate. You also may have issues with code in some browsers or devices. If you’re aware of these problems, it’s time to redesign your site so everyone can access it no matter the device.

5. Traffic Metrics are Down:

If you’re getting less traffic to your site, having fewer people click past the home page, or making fewer sales, you have a problem to solve. Perhaps the website isn’t easy to navigate or maybe it’s not optimized for search engines so you’ve dropped off the first page of results. Redesigning your site with attention to search engine optimization and practical navigability will help your traffic increase again.

Creating a new website doesn’t have to eat up all of your time and energy for months at a time. You can turn to a skilled developer to put your site together and hand over the reins so it’s easy for you to manage it going forward. There are also many types of tools and templates available to help you put together a professional site that can help build your small business.