A business website can keep working for years without necessarily working well. Technology changes, customer expectations evolve and businesses themselves move on, so a website that looked professional five or ten years ago may now feel dated, be awkward to use on a phone or simply fail to reflect what the business offers today.
Here are five common signs that it may be time to consider a website redesign.
1. Your website looks dated
Potential customers often form an opinion about a business within seconds of arriving on its website, so if the design feels old-fashioned, cluttered or inconsistent, that can quickly affect how professional and established the business appears.
Common signs of an ageing website include small text, narrow page layouts, dated fonts, crowded navigation, old photography, inconsistent styling and pages containing too much information without a clear hierarchy.
A redesign does not mean following every new design trend. At Andrew Burdett Design, the aim is to create websites that feel current, clear and appropriate for the organisation they represent, without becoming fashionable for the sake of it.
2. It does not work particularly well on mobile phones
For many businesses, a significant proportion of website visitors now arrive on a smartphone, and a website can technically be “mobile friendly” while still being frustrating to use.
Buttons may be too small, forms awkward to complete, navigation difficult to understand or important information buried too far down the page. A modern website should therefore be designed with different screen sizes in mind from the outset, rather than simply shrinking the desktop version.
Andrew Burdett Design builds responsive websites using WordPress and Elementor, carefully adjusting layouts, typography, navigation and content so that the site remains easy to use on desktop computers, tablets and phones.
3. Your business has changed but your website has not
Businesses rarely stand still, and over time you may introduce new services, change the type of clients you work with, update your branding or develop areas of the business that did not exist when the original website was created.
If the website no longer accurately represents the business, it can become a liability rather than an asset. This is particularly common with websites that have been added to gradually over several years, where new pages have been created while old sections remain in place and the overall structure has become increasingly confusing.
A redesign provides an opportunity to look at the website as a whole again, simplifying navigation, reorganising services, removing outdated content and making sure the most important parts of the business receive the prominence they deserve.
4. Visitors are not turning into enquiries
A website can look good and still perform badly if visitors are not being given a clear reason or route to make contact.
Potential customers should be able to understand quickly what you do, who you work with, why they should choose you and what they should do next. Contact details should be easy to find, forms should be straightforward to complete and the design should naturally guide visitors towards the information they need.
This is an important part of professional web design because the objective is not simply to make a website attractive, but to make it useful to the people visiting it and effective for the business behind it.
5. Making changes has become difficult
Older websites often become increasingly difficult to maintain, with simple changes requiring a developer, plugins becoming incompatible or parts of the site no longer working as reliably as they once did.
If you find yourself reluctant to change anything because you are worried about breaking the site, that is often a strong indication that it may be time to consider rebuilding it on a more manageable platform.
Andrew Burdett Design predominantly develops websites using WordPress and Elementor, giving businesses a flexible platform that can be updated and expanded over time while still allowing clients to make straightforward content changes themselves if they wish. Ongoing hosting, maintenance and support can also be provided, so there is somebody familiar with the website available when updates or problems need attention.
Redesigning does not always mean starting from scratch
A website redesign does not necessarily mean discarding everything you already have, as existing content, photography, branding and search engine rankings may all be worth preserving.
The first step is usually to identify what is working, what is not and what the website now needs to achieve. In some cases, a relatively modest refresh may be enough, while in others a full rebuild will provide a better long-term solution.
The important thing is that the decision is based on the needs of the business rather than simply the age of the website.
Is your website still doing its job?
If your website looks dated, performs poorly on mobile devices, no longer represents your business or is becoming difficult to maintain, it may be worth reviewing.
Andrew Burdett Design has been designing and developing websites for businesses and organisations since 1999, providing website design, WordPress development, hosting, maintenance and ongoing support.
If you are considering updating or redesigning your existing website, please get in touch to discuss what would work best for your business.
