Is it time to redo your website? 8 signs it is
Slow, hard to read on a phone, impossible to update, invisible on Google: the signs it's time to redo your website, and how to do it without losing anything.
Your website has been around for a few years. It “works”, but you’re not really proud of it any more, and you’re not sure it still brings in customers. Here are the signs that don’t lie.
1. It’s hard to read on a phone
Open it on your phone: do you have to zoom, scroll sideways, aim for tiny buttons? That’s how most of your visitors see it. A site designed for computers first loses many of them.
2. It’s slow
If the page takes several seconds to appear, some visitors leave before they’ve seen it. Heavy images, tools piled up over the years: it can often be fixed, though sometimes it’s simpler to start again.
3. The information is out of date
Old opening hours, an old menu, services you no longer offer, photos from ten years ago. A visitor who finds one wrong detail starts wondering whether the rest is reliable.
4. You can’t change it
The developer has vanished, the tool is too complicated, or every change costs a call-out. A website you can’t update ends up looking its age.
5. It doesn’t show up on Google
Search for your trade and your town: where are you? A site without clear titles, pages for each service or an address search engines can read stays invisible, however good it looks. Our article on getting found on Google by people nearby covers the basics.
6. The browser says “Not secure”
Without the padlock (HTTPS), browsers warn your visitors. Not the best way to welcome them.
7. Visitors don’t know what to do
No visible call button, a form hidden at the bottom of a page, a phone number you can’t tap: if visitors have to hunt for how to contact you, they’ll go elsewhere.
8. It doesn’t speak your customers’ language
If some of your customers come from abroad, a site in one language shuts them out. See our article on multilingual websites.
Redoing your site without losing anything
A redesign doesn’t mean starting from nothing. We keep:
- your domain name, which your customers know;
- what works: your best text, your photos, your reviews;
- your place on Google: when page addresses change, we set up redirects so old links lead to the new pages.
Recognise your site in two or three of these signs? Send us its address: we’ll tell you what we’d change, and why.