Websites have evolved over time and these days it is often quite easy for somebody to spot a website that hasn’t been maintained or updated in a while. Some business owners make the mistake of thinking that a website is something they will be able to set and forget, but the truth is that over time this could mean that your site gets left behind. If you’ve been looking at your website recently and are wondering if it might be due a modernising makeover to bring it up to speed, here are some sure signs that you’re right.
Dated Graphics and Fonts
If the ‘look and feel’ of your website takes you right back to twenty years ago then it’s probably time to give it an update, even if your site hasn’t actually been around that long. The good news is that updating your font and graphic choices can be one of the easiest ways to modernise a website that looks like it is somewhat behind the times. Currently, trends in web design are moving away from frilly designs and fonts and bordered, clunky images to flatter design, plainer yet creative fonts and iconography.
Unnecessary Content
Even with a good content manager and great information architecture, websites do tend to collect content over time and not taking care of your website is one sure way to allow issues to creep in when it comes to this area. Homepages are especially at risk of collecting a lot of unnecessary content especially in large organisations where there are different departments all competing for a piece of the homepage real estate. Redesigning and strategic planning might be needed if you’re struggling to see the wood for the trees when it comes to the content on your site.
Slow Load Time
An Amazon load time study found that for every one hundred milliseconds of load time, sales decreased by one percent. And this study was done all the way back in 2007, when online shopping was still relatively new, and people had more patience when it came to the internet. These days, nobody likes to wait around online for a site to load, so if yours is loading slowly, it’s probably time to do something about it.
Not Mobile Friendly
Back in the days before smartphones, most people were accessing websites on their computers and laptops because it was just easier this way. But these days, the majority of us are walking around with a supercomputer in our pocket and there is no need to go and find out laptop if we want to visit a website as we can easily do it on mobile instead. But that’s until a website that somebody tries to visit isn’t mobile-friendly. Having a design that appears awful when somebody tries to view it on a mobile device is a sure sign of being dated and can damage your SEO ranking and more. Upgrading to a responsive website that will give visitors the same experience across all devices is the best advice.
A dated, old-fashioned website isn’t going to do anything for your brand, so don’t let your site fall behind the times.
