There are some good fundamental reasons why you should have your website redesigned, some of the reasons are obvious such as the overall look of your website looking tired and needing to be freshened up, but some are not so obvious such as the backend technology being out of date.

Website Style is out of date

Website designs can go in and out of fashion much the same as clothes do there tends to be a website fashion trend. The style of a website become dated quickly depending on the requirements if you are a young trendy fashion website you would want the style of the website to be at the forefront.

The styles are changing due to new technologies being released or the internet bandwidth increasing or web design companies experimenting and trying to push the boundaries of what the technology can do. As the web is maturing web designers and developers are understanding more what the users want and the technology is better at handling it.

A good example of an out of date style is the flash splash page a few years ago they were all the rage as flash was still quite new on the web, but now there are very few website with a flash splash page as they found that the users didn’t bother watching it and clicked past it to get the information they were looking for.

To keep your website ahead of your competition

It’s nice to have the best looking or most stylish website compared to your competitors, but you can safely assume that your competitors will be planning to upgrade their own website as they will be looking to stay in competition with your own website.

To help keep your website ahead of the game, as soon as your website is launched or even before you should be thinking about what you would like to do next, or what you would like to introduce to your website, like including a twitter feed to your website. A good way to help you develop your website better can be letting your users and clients tell you what they would like to see on your website.

A website user is very impatient; they are looking for your website to load quickly and to find the information on your website as quickly as possible. This means that you only have a few seconds to wow a user. If you don’t then as it’s online they can quickly go somewhere else that will. This is why it’s important to stay ahead of your competitors.

Your current website does not reflect your brand

Customers to your website will see it as a reflection of your company so it is important that your website reflects a good image of your company, by keeping your brand consistent it will help clients instantly recognise your company with only a glimpse and it is also a very important way of winning new business. Sending out a strong message about your company brand from your website and other advertising helps build confidence in your clients and potential clients.

Reflects your future not your past

This can be an important point that can be easily overlooked. Like everything business principles can also follow trends, it is important that your principles are reflected upon your website. A business will always be growing and evolving to the next step and may even take a different direction and if you have had your website for about 2 years then it is very possible that the website is no longer a true reflection on where your business is now heading and where it is looking to go in the future.

Redesigning the website offers you the chance to amend the website message and future plans. Keeping your clients well informed is important in gaining trust and driving repeat business.

Updating your website

If your website has a Content Management System (CMS) there is no reason why your website shouldn’t be up-to-date. You should be looking to update your website as often as possible, at least once a week. Keeping repeat visitors to your website is very important and they will always be looking for the newest items or products or information.

A CMS system should be looked at as an investment over time as it will prove to be more cost effective than a static website that you can’t update quickly.

How a redesign can attract more visitors

Having the website redesigned is great but the whole purpose for the redesign is to get users onto the website new and old here are a couple of ways:

• A website Redesign is an great excuse to contact old and new clients to come and have a look at the new website style and get there feedback on the new look.
• By redesigning your website you can get new Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) techniques put onto the website so that you rank better within search engines such as Google.

Redesign can help improve the website conversion rate

For most website it is important to convert potential leads to sales, wither it be a sales enquiry or an ecommerce sale. A way to get information on what is happening with your website is to use a website stats tool, such as Google analytics.

A stats tool will allow you to see what the popular pages are and how often people are looking at them and what pages are not really being utilised by users. It can also let you know how many people look at your website and leave right away if it is rather high then you will need to look at the design and messages on the website and see how they can be approved on.

Improve the website usability

Making the website easy to use is a key factor if people find it hard to get around the website there is less chance that they will come back to the website and even less chance that they will be talking about the website to friends. A user should be able to find what they are looking for within couple of clicks.

Website usability is the difference between a poor or ok or excellent website experiences. The better the experience and the quicker the user can find the information the more likely they will return to the website and use your services again.

The website copy

The website copy is an important part to any website and should be written only for the website. It is often a common mistake to reuse copy from old brochures that users have already seen and read this is one of the main reasons that users can switch off while being on your website.

Users don’t read a website the same way that they would read print material, as they will tend to skim quickly through a page picking out highlighted peaces and determine wither or not the website is relevant. If you find it hard to write copy for your website you should think about contacting a copywriter or your web design team as they tend to know a copywriter or have one on their staff as web copy is written differently from print.