Did you launch your website a few years ago? If so, it’s time for a redesign. The internet, web development standards and best practices are constantly evolving. How people consume information and access your website has changed with the times … have you?

Here’s a look at 14 tell-tale signs that your website is need of a refresh.

1. High bounce rate

Bounce rate shows how long a website visitors stays on your site after viewing one page. If the bounce rate of your website is over 50% , it means 50% of visitors leave without navigating to different pages on your site.

There are various of the reason for high bounce rates that can include bot traffic, web design issues, information architecture, etc. And if your current website was not created with user interface (UI and user experience (UX) in mind, then it is likely the reason for a high bounce rate, signaling it’s time to redesign your website.

2.Non-mobile-friendly site

According to Pew Research Center, 72% of American adults now own a smartphone, up from 35% in 2011. And many of those same people use their smartphone to go online. Can online visitors access your site from any device? If not, when a mobile visitor visits your site and it’s unreadable they will quickly click away and bounce from your site.

According to Nielsen, “US adults spent on average 34 hours per month using the mobile internet on smartphones. By comparison, they spend 27 hours on the PC internet.” If your website is mobile friendly, then search engines will give you a boost in organic rankings. If not, they will penalize you.

Your site should be responsive, meaning users can access it from all devices, regardless of screen size. Take Google’s mobile-friendly test and analyze your website to see if it has a mobile-friendly design. Mobiletest.me also allows you to view your website across various mobile devices.

3. Poor website health

Check out your Google search console and Bing webmaster accounts for deep insight into your website’s overall health. Take a look at Google Analytics to view key website performance metrics.

Find out if there are any 404 errors, crawl errors or any other errors that decrease your website’s performance. Also, look into how often your website appears in search results along with click-through rates. If your site doesn’t pass these basic website health measures, then it might be time to update your website.

4. Visitors don’t move past the homepage

If Google Analytics, or any other analytics tools you use, shows a decrease in organic visitors, high bounce rates or a large number of online visitors who don’t move past your homepage, then there is something wrong with your website design. Visitors don’t like something on it. And if they drop off repeatedly then it’s time to consider a website redesign to make your site easier to navigate.

5. Slow website loading times

The average website users’ attention span is very low. When a visitor lands on your site, you have 5 to 6 seconds to impress them. If your website takes longer than 5 seconds to load, it is likely they will leave your website. Use Pingdom, a free tool that will let you test the load time of any page, analyze it and find bottlenecks.

6. Infrequent website updates

Don’t expect loads of website traffic just by buying a domain and launching a stock website. Your website needs TLC from time to time. You’ll have to work proactively on a website and tweak it to get serious business results out of it.

If you do not update your website regularly, then it’s time for a website makeover. You’ll need to start creating compelling content, increase social media activity and monitor website traffic.

7. Unclear and ineffective call to action

Call to Action (CTA) is an essential element in web design. You need to place CTA buttons intelligently within web pages to increase conversions. CTA buttons inspire website visitors to engage with you.

In fact, a well-placed CTA button will improve your website conversion rate by 15 to 20%. CTA’s could include sign up forms for service quotes or an email newsletter, a contact form, free downloads, product sample requests, etc.

8. Low lead generation results

Online visitors are more likely to trust and buy from a well-designed website, rather than a mediocre one. If you are not getting enough leads from your site, it’s time for a redesign a website with help in getting new clients. Great web design will imply trust and authority in visitor’s mind and motivate prospects to reach you via email or fill the contact form.

9. Little to no social media activity

Do you use social media to market your products and services? Today it’s boomtown for social commerce and social selling.  You can use social media for brand building, social awareness, customer interaction, feedback gathering etc.

The role of social media in business is expanding and more businesses are finding new customers from their social channels. According to an iMedia Connection report, 57% of companies have acquired customers through LinkedIn , 48% have acquired customers through Twitter, and 42% have generated customers through Facebook.

10. No company blog

One of the best and simplest ways to gain organic search engine traffic is to write post blog entries. Creating new content on the website gives site visitors incentives to come back for more insightful content. If you don’t have a blog on your website, consider adding one to your site.

11. Change of brand or audience

Business is fluid and inevitably you will pivot and grow over time. Maybe you’ve developed a new product offering, revenue model, secondary target audience or simply changed your address?

If you’ve gone through a business change that has customer-facing implications it should be reflected on your website. Access to updated and correct information on your website builds credibility and contributes to your “know, like and trust” factor.

12. HTML table element design

Several years ago, web designers made websites page layouts with the HTML table element. Virtually no one does this anymore, as CSS is far more powerful than tables could ever hope to be.

If your website is designed with this page layout, it is hard to read, it’s not mobile-friendly and content in tables is impossible for search engines to find. Table structure sites are technically made with invalid HTML code, so … they have got to go!

13. Hiring developers for small changes

Do you need to contact your website developer or programmer for every little change that you need on your website? If so, then I strongly recommend you use a CMS (Content Management System) like WordPress, Joomla, etc. to manage your website.

Considering 24% of websites are powered by WordPress and 60.4% of all sites developed with site builders are WordPress powered, CMS is a no-brainer. Much of your editing and tweaks can be done from the back-end with little to no technical experience.

14. Outdated website content

If you have not updated your website for a long time, there is very high chance that your content is outdated. If your website is tied to business goals then you should ensure content is fresh and relevant. And if you desire organic traffic from search engines, then don’t forget to craft content with keyword research in mind to boost SEO results.

If you’re unsure whether your website is up to par, hire a web development company of your choice to perform a content audit of your website. This will allow you to identify the shortcomings of your current site and improve upon it.

This article has been edited and condensed.


Gaurav Kanabar is the Founder and CEO of Alphanso Tech, a globally acknowledged India based IT Consulting company that provides web and mobile app development and IOT and business intelligence solutions. Connect with @alphansotech on Twitter.

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