When was the last time you updated your website? How often should you?

Our clients often ask us how often they should update or redesign their website. The answer isn’t as straight forward as you might think. So to help people with this question I came up with 10 sure signs that it’s time to update your website.

Here are the 10 Sure Signs It’s Time For A Website Redesign or Website Update;

You have to pay for updates.

With today’s CMS (content management system) technology there is no reason, other than time or not wanting to mess with it, to be hunting down your web design company and paying them hourly to change simple things like product prices, photos in a gallery, adding testimonials or updating information about your services. You can update those things as easily as sending an email and we know how many of those you have to do every day! If can do it but aren’t because you don’t want to or don’t have the time we get that but if you aren’t doing it because your webmaster won’t let you… it’s time for a change.

Ask Yourself This - Can you make changes to your website on your own?

Your site doesn’t look good on smart phones.

We spend a ton of time these days on our phones. For most of the sites we manage people viewing them on smart phones makes up over half of their website traffic. Not only do you want to make sure people have a good experience when they visit your site on their phone or tablet you also want to do it because Google cares. They know how important a mobile/responsive ( meaning it works on a smart phone or tablet) website is and will penalize you if yours isn’t. This doesn’t mean Google will black list you or not show your website in the results but if it’s between you and someone with a mobile site, and everything else is equal, they’ll show up first.

Try This - Pull up your website on your phone. How does it look?

Your website looks out of date or old.

This one is a little harder to nail down specifics on but you can tell when a site looks like it was made on an Apple IIe. It will be super narrow, probably have a dark background and bright fonts, there will be lot’s of flashing text and images, maybe some toasters will fly by.. you get the idea.

Do This - Do a Google Search for "modern website design". Click on images and check out some of the results. How does your site match up?

Sales or leads are going down.

Hopefully you have a good way of tracking how many leads or orders you get from your website. If not that’s a sign too. If you can track it and you see a trend of sales or leads going down, it’s time to figure out why and make a change.

Ask Yourself This- Are sales and leads from my website as strong as they have been in the past?

People don’t stay long.

Programs like Google Analytics will show you a lot about how people interact with your website. If you don’t have something like that we suggest you add it now and start watching these stats… Users, Sessions, Page Views, Time on Site and Bounce Rate. Users is how many people came to your website. Sessions is how many times they came to your site. Page views is how many pages they looked at while on your site. Bounce rate tell you how many people didn’t look at more than one page when they came to your site. If you are watching these numbers and see them going in the wrong direction then you know it’s time for something fresh and more effective. If you aren’t watching these numbers, get on it.

Do This - If you don’t have Google Analytics or something similar set it up now. If you do, looks at your stats for the last two years, month by month and figure out if they are getting worse or better.

Your company has made changes.

This one is pretty straight forward. If your marketing/graphic design person decided everything in your marketing needs to be blue now and your site is red, it’s time for an update. Also if your site lists services you no longer offer or doesn’t list ones you now do, it’s time to fix that.

Do This - Compare your website to that last brochure or flyer you had made.

You content is old.

If your site doesn’t get updated it’s bad all around. People don’t want to see the same old info and neither does Google. If you want to keep people interested and Google showing people your website then you need to keep your content fresh and current. If you can’t do that on your own, see #1, then let’s talk.

Ask Yourself This - When was the last time I added or updated info on my website?

People tell you it’s ugly.

If one person tells you that your website is ugly they might just feel like being mean, however, if you hear it a few times then you should start to listen.The flip side of that is this, when was the last time someone complimented you on your website and told you it looked good?

Ask Yourself This - Is my site ugly? Be honest with yourself now.

People can’t find you online.

If people are telling you that they can’t find you online it’s probably a combination of several of the above points. Either way it’s definitely a sign that you should look into updating your website.

Do This - Google your product or service and see if you come up.

Your site uses flash.

If you know what flash is your probably have it on your website. Fortunately you don’t see it as often as you used to. If you do have flash it’s a HUGE indicator that your site needs updating! Flash doesn’t load on all devices, requires people to install or update the flash plugin and in general is just a bad idea.

Ask Yourself This - Do I have a lot of animation on my site? If so is it done in flash?