The Power Of UI
User Interface (UI), not to be confused with User Experience (UX), though both are vital to website usability, is one…
Does Your Website Need Updating?
The look of your website is incredibly important as you probably know. It is clear that your business’s website is in trouble when you realise that your target audience are leaving your website in a few seconds after entering. What’s even worse is when your most important keyword is not showing up on Google 6 months after the launch. Situations like this can make you feel like giving up but don’t lose hope – there are some very straight forward answers and solutions that can save this from happening!
Throughout this article I will cover all aspects of your website and what you can do to modernise it and update it to entice and attract your desired target audience.
Does your website reflect your brand?
If your answer to this question is “no”, then your website needs an update…now! Your website promotes your brand 24/7 online and it needs to represent the feel of your business precisely. If you have rebranded recently, this is not a problem but you need to ensure that your website reflects and advocates that change. If you do not allow for this, you could attract the wrong type of clients who want your old type of work. This leads onto my second point.
Are you attracting the right kind of clients?
In a nutshell, if you are not getting approached by the correct type of clients you want to work with, you are not marketing yourself correctly. One rule that is crucial to follow is to check, double check, and triple check your content. Ensure that the content and galleries that are being displayed on your website are definitely what you want your target market to see and compare to your brand. It is recommended to select your best quality, fresh, and professional images to include on your homepage, e.g. in your slider to truly represent what you want clients to see your brand as. By doing this, it will immediately filter out the inquiries which are not fit for you. Remember, your website needs to be consistent. All fonts, colours, icons etc. need to follow a theme!
Is my theme outdated?
This question is incredibly important sort out! If you have an outdated theme on your website, this will affect your visitors’ experience. Even though this question is important to face head on, this doesn’t necessarily mean it is the easiest. The Digital world is constantly changing and evolving which means that this hurdle will need to be addressed multiple times throughout your brands life. If you built your website over 2 years ago, it is advised that it mostly likely needs an update. It probably has outdated code that can slow down its loading speed. More importantly, the amount of people visiting websites through smart phones has increased dramatically since a few years ago. If your website doesn’t work excellently on smartphones…this will put off clients!
Does your website have a slow loading speed?
You should aim for a loading speed of under 5 seconds. A smart way of working out how quickly your site loads is to use tools like ‘Pingdom’ or ‘GTmetrix’. These tools will also find the files on your website which are slowing your website down which makes it much easier for you! Poor results means you have some work to do – but you would much rather know than not…right? There are a number of reasons why your website loads slowly – it can be due to heavy unoptimized images, underpowered hosting or possible an old theme.
Is your bounce rate high?
Finally, I have saved the most important to last! As I’m sure you are pouring your heart and soul into your website, the last thing you want is your clients bouncing right off it. If your time has been spent on SEO and a marketing strategy which brings in lots of traffic but then your clients bounce off your website…you have a problem. You are losing potential clients which keeps your business going. As an indication, a bounce rate between 40%-60% is considered okay (depending on your sector of business). Google Analytics is a really good tool that will check your bounce rate. If your bounce rate is high, it is time to update your website!
I hope these points help you understand whether your website needs an update or not! Even if you decide that it is not necessary to update your site, remember that keeping it modern and enticing requires a lot of time yet is incredibly important. If you have any enquiries or questions regarding your website, please do not hesitate to contact us here at Hex for recommendations and advice.
