Do You Really Need a Website Redesign?
Your website has been around for a few years.
The colors suddenly feel dated. Your competitor just launched something shiny. Their homepage has animations. Things slide in. Things fade out. A photograph moves when you move the mouse.
Naturally, there’s only one conclusion.
Burn yours down and redesign everything.
Or maybe not.
A website redesign should solve a business or user problem, not simply make your website prettier. Here are five signs a redesign might actually be worth it.
1. Your mobile experience is terrible
Open your website on your phone.
Can you read everything easily? Are buttons easy to tap? Can someone contact you without zooming, scrolling sideways or accidentally clicking six different things?
If not, you have a real problem.
A beautiful desktop website that becomes an obstacle course on a phone isn’t beautiful. It’s annoying.
2. Nobody knows what you actually do
Visitors shouldn’t need detective skills to understand your business.
Within a few seconds, your homepage should communicate what you offer, who it’s for and what visitors should do next.
“Transforming Tomorrow Through Innovative Solutions” might sound impressive in a boardroom.
It tells your customer absolutely nothing.
3. Your website is painfully slow
Huge images, unnecessary scripts, elaborate animations and twenty-seven plugins can make a website look spectacular.
Eventually.
If visitors are staring at a loading screen waiting for your cinematic masterpiece to appear, some of them won’t stick around for the premiere.
Good design and good performance should coexist.
4. Making simple updates requires an IT department
Changing your business hours shouldn’t require a developer, three emails and a project kickoff meeting.
If your website is difficult to maintain, built on outdated technology or constantly breaking when you change something, a redesign or rebuild may make sense.
5. People visit, but they don’t convert
This is the big one.
If you’re getting traffic but very few calls, forms, bookings or purchases, investigate why.
Maybe your CTA is buried. Or maybe navigation is confusing. Or maybe your forms ask for someone’s complete life history before they’ll let them request a quote.
Before redesigning everything, identify the actual problem.
As we discussed in Pretty Websites Don’t Necessarily Generate Leads, looking impressive and generating business aren’t the same thing.
The takeaway
Yes, your website should look good.
But “beautiful” should never come at the expense of usability.
The best websites don’t make visitors admire the designer. They make it ridiculously easy for visitors to understand the business, find what they need and take the next step.
Redesign because something needs fixing.
Not because you’re tired of the shade of blue.