The potential for design-driven growth on the internet is tremendous in both product and service-based sectors. And nowadays, there are more opportunities than ever before for businesses to pursue user-centric, analytically informed decision-making when it comes to design. Businesses can obtain direct opinions from customers in real-time, enabling the design strategy to be measured by the customers themselves. All these interactions are constant reminders of the imperative role design plays in both disruptive and sustained commercial success for not only physical services but also in digital settings as well.
Despite the obvious advantages of designing excellent products and services, consistently realizing its goal and staying up to date is notoriously hard. Only the very best and most appealing designs now stand out among the crowd, given the rapid rise in customer expectations and digital first strategies. Businesses now require stronger design capabilities and must be unique in order to attract their target audiences.
Especially when it comes to business websites!
Over the past couple of years, more businesses have adopted the digital-first strategy because of the multiple lockdowns, travel restrictions, and decrease in social interactions. Customers were quick to adapt to digitization as most of the people who were previously reluctant in online shopping had no other choice rather than to go virtual.
Hence, this has made websites become an essential part of businesses to drive new leads, convert customers, provide information, generate sales, and much more. All this has also made customers spend more time online researching, comparing, and buying products and services than ever. The increased availability of online resources enhanced their expectations as well. As most customers tend to leave a website and visit the next site if their expectations are not well met.
Therefore, is your business website capable of adhering to the changes in these customer behaviors and can your business generate maximum results online? Your willingness to adapt to modern technologies and the effort that you put into redesigning and renovating your business website will provide the answers that you seek.
But first, why is it important to be relevant to the changing times, especially for online businesses that depend on the website for revenue? Let’s find out.
Top Reasons Why You Should Renovate Your Business Website
1. Your Website is Not Secure
Every web owner is probably well aware of the importance of website security and why it is essential to keep the security protocols up to date. Just like technology, there are different malware and hacking methods invented every day. If your website still uses the old security certifications, it would be difficult to identify and prevent the latest cyber attacks. Cyber attacks will not only affect your brand reputation and lead to loss of customers but it will significantly bring down your SERP rankings in Google, as search engines will blacklist unsecure websites.
2. High Bounce Rate
A high bounce rate is a good example that your website is not performing well among customers. You can use Google Analytics to check your bounce rate; it indicates the number of visitors who look at one page on your website and don’t visit any other pages from there. As you might have guessed, a high bounce rate shows that customers are not particularly interested in visiting any other pages on your website.
This could be due to the poor layout of content, inefficient website navigation, lack of proper CTA buttons, slow page load times, and much more. Similar to website security, websites with high bounce rates will find it difficult to rank on Google. Therefore, it shows that it’s time to renovate the website and make it more appealing so that customers feel the need to visit other pages as well.
3. Outdated Design and Technologies
From responsive browsing to progressive web application (PWA) development, companies have begun to adopt the latest design trends and development technologies to stay relevant to the current digital era. Websites that are built using older technologies will find it challenging to work efficiently on the latest devices, platforms, and operating systems (OS).
Also, it can significantly affect customer experience, functionality, and usability and could lead to websites crashing much more often. Websites built with the latest technology can make your business more agile and productive. It can provide you access to real-time analytics so that you can make smarter, more informed decisions. Also, technologies like cloud computing can make your website available to customers all around the globe.
How Often Should Businesses Redesign or Renovate Their Website?
Your business, its services, the products you sell, the type of target audience, and the target market changes a lot in a year’s time. And when you look from a different perspective, there are also constant changes to the Google algorithms, ranking factors, SEO checklists, technologies, web development language, and much more. If your website is not able to reflect any of those changes or is unable to keep up with competitors, then maybe it’s time to renovate.
Also, the most important factor to consider is your website metrics and analytics data. It clearly shows how your website visitors are reacting and what they find challenging on your site. If you are able to identify and address these customer pain points and make changes to your website in order to meet their expectations, then your site will have a much better chance to stay relevant in the competitive digital era.
Also, keep in mind to review and audit your business website once every year. It will help you understand what has changed, how competitors have adapted, and what you need to do in order to stay up to date.
Conclusion
The internet and everything related to it is constantly evolving and adapting, and if your business is not moving to adjust with it then you’re bound to be left behind. By investing in revamping your existing website, you are making your business relevant to the modern times and offering the best user experience to your visitors. For this, you can leverage the help of experts doing web development in Toronto and comprehensively audit your website and let you know if your website requires a redesign or not.
Author Bio:
Cindy Williams is a blogger in Canada. She is working as an outreach coordinator for Web Sharx, a company offering web design in Toronto. She graduated with honors from the University of British Columbia with a dual degree in Business Administration and Creative Writing.