5 Signs Your Business Website Needs a Redesign
There’s a big difference between a website being a few years old and a website actually needing to be replaced.
Trends change. Businesses change. And if you redesigned your website every time somebody decided rounded buttons were fashionable again, you’d never get anything else done.
But there comes a point where an older website starts getting in the way.
Maybe you’ve stopped sending people to it. Maybe making a simple change has become a job in itself. Or maybe it still talks about a version of your business that doesn’t really exist anymore.
Here are five signs it might be time to do something about it.
1. You’re slightly embarrassed to send people there
This is usually the easiest one to spot.
Someone asks for your website, and instead of confidently sending them the link, you find yourself saying:
“Just ignore that bit…”
“We’re getting it updated soon…”
“Most of our stuff is on Facebook now…”
Your website doesn’t have to win design awards, but it should feel like a fair representation of the business behind it.
If you’ve invested in better branding, better photography, new premises, new products or simply grown considerably since the website was built, it might no longer match the standard of everything else you’re doing.
That matters because, for plenty of potential customers, your website will be their first proper look at your business.
2. It’s a pain to update
Changing your opening hours shouldn’t require three emails, a developer and a minor miracle.
One of the things I like about building websites with Squarespace is that once the site is finished, the business owner doesn’t have to depend on me forever.
If you want to change some text, add a photo, publish a blog or update a service, you should be able to.
There will always be businesses that would rather hand their website updates over to somebody else (and that’s completely fine), but there’s a difference between choosing to outsource it and having no other option.
If you've stopped updating your website simply because it's too awkward to do, the platform itself might now be part of the problem.
3. Your business has changed, but your website hasn’t
This happens more often than you might think.
A website gets launched and then quietly sits there while the actual business carries on moving.
New services get introduced. Old ones disappear. Prices change. The team grows. Your ideal customer changes. You start working in different areas.
A couple of years later, somebody lands on the website and gets a completely different impression of the business from the one they'd get if they actually spoke to you.
Sometimes that can be fixed with new copy and a bit of restructuring.
Other times, there have been enough changes that trying to patch the old website starts making less sense than rebuilding it properly.
4. It doesn’t work properly on a phone
Have a look at your website on your phone.
Not just the homepage, either.
Try the navigation. Read a service page. Fill in the contact form. Press the buttons. Look at the images.
Is everything easy to use without pinching the screen, zooming in or accidentally pressing the wrong thing?
A website can look perfectly respectable sitting on a big desktop monitor and be horrible to actually use on a smaller screen.
And because plenty of your customers will encounter it on their phone first, mobile design isn't something to sort out afterwards.
It needs to be part of the website from the beginning.
5. It isn't helping anyone take the next step
This is the big one.
A website can look lovely and still be surprisingly useless.
Once somebody lands on yours, is it obvious what you want them to do?
That might be:
Request a quote
Book an appointment
Buy a product
Call you
Visit your premises
Join a membership
Make an enquiry
Whatever the goal is, the website should make getting there easy.
If visitors have to dig through five pages to find a phone number, the contact button doesn't work, or your main call to action is hidden somewhere at the bottom of the page, you're making potential customers work unnecessarily hard.
Good website design isn't just about making things look nicer.
It's about removing those little bits of friction.
Do you actually need a whole new website?
Not necessarily.
And I'd be wary of anyone who tells you that you definitely need a brand new website before they've even looked at the one you've got.
Sometimes a website has perfectly good foundations and just needs better content, a clearer structure, refreshed imagery or some general tidying up.
Other times, starting again is the more sensible option.
The important thing is working out what's actually wrong first.
Because there's very little point spending money rebuilding a website if you're simply going to recreate all of the same problems with nicer fonts.
Think yours might be ready for a refresh?
If a few of these sounded familiar, feel free to send your website my way.
I design and build Squarespace websites for businesses that want something professional, straightforward and easy to manage, without making the whole process more complicated than it needs to be.
