When & Why to Redevelop Your Website

Redeveloping your website is not just about reconfiguring the navigation menu or putting some fresh images on it. It’s about giving it a more responsive design and better functionality to compete in the marketplace. This brings us to the question, why should you redevelop your website? Read on and learn more!

To Make it Mobile-Friendly

There’s nothing more frustrating with mobile browsing than having to scroll left to right to view the content on your device. This affects the user experience negatively and prevents the website from rankings well on search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.). A responsive design means you can view the site on any mobile device no matter how small the screen is.

The idea is to have a different design configuration that makes it easy for the audience to interact with the content on specific devices. If the visitors can’t click on the buttons because they are too small, they won’t buy the product or service. Therefore, as you redevelop the website, you should only keep the elements pf the website you need.

Why is a responsive design important? Because all customers have unique needs, you should ensure your site delivers coherent information across all devices. The layout should be perfect for all screen sizes and devices.

You should also consider future scalability as more devices enter the market. It’s estimated that more than 72% of internet users will access the web via mobile devices by 2025. Today, people spend more time surfing the internet via mobile devices than they do on desktops. Regardless of the device you use, you must make sure your site is mobile-friendly.

Being mobile-friendly can also vastly improve your search visibility.

To Improve SEO

Search engine optimization is a strategy which ensures your site is found in the search engines. When your web pages are properly optimized, you will stand a higher chance of ranking in the search results for your target keywords.

The key concept of SEO is making your site relevant to the keywords being used to find you. For example, if you’re a coffee shop in New York, you would want to rank well for keywords like “coffee shops in ny city.” In order to rank well, you have to make it easy for the search engines to understand what your website is all about.

When redeveloping your website, you should use a platform like WordPress as the foundation. WordPress is very search engine friendly and allows you to quickly make changes to your web pages.

This means you can quickly optimize them for the search engines without the need for any programming knowledge. You can also use third-party WordPress SEO plugins to help you optimize your web pages and content.

Google Analytics is an essential tool for helping you to understand how people interact with your site and how much traffic the search engines are sending to your website. When developing your website, you should ask your web developer to set this up for you.

Search visibility is also deeply impacted by the quality of the content you have on your website. If you still have the same content you had five years ago, it might not be relevant anymore. Google will usually favor updated content over older content in the search results. So, consider going through your site and freshening up the actual text.

As you update your website, by making it mobile friendly and updating the actual content, you will probably inadvertently reduce your bounce rate.

To Reduce the Bounce Rate

The bounce rate refers to the percentage of website visitors who leave the website without going any further into the website. In other words, they don’t click any links that take them to another page on the same website. This is a red flag of a poorly performing site.

When visitors land on your site, you want them to be comfortable with the layout and content they see. You want them to find the answers to questions they have on your website without clicking the back button. Your bounce rate is one of the metrics you can track using the Google Analytics software mentioned above.

So, how do you reduce your bounce rate?

The first thing to do when reducing your bounce rate is to make your content readable. If you use large chunks of text, you may scare the readers away. Make your content easy to digest. If we removed all the images and headers from this blog post, do you think you would have read this far? It’s not as likely.

Another area you should work on is keeping your website layout organized. You should structure your navigation menu so your users can find what they are looking for when navigating around your site.

Take a look at your website’s speed. Make sure you redevelop it so that is loads as quickly as possible. Be systematic with the process to ensure you work on everything that may be slowing down your website. You can ask a digital marketing company to run a website audit to see why your website is running slowly. Then, they [or we] can help you fix the most pressing issues. The bounce rate may also increase when users hit a roadblock (technical error). Maybe a plugin or JavaScript file went down.

You should also remove any low-quality content which may increase the bounce rate. You should focus on high quality content and make your content visually appealing. This doesn’t just affect your bounce rate. It also effects your user experience, SEO and your conversion rate.

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To Improve the Conversion Rate

Every improvement you make to your website has the goal of improving your sales. If you want to take your business to the next level, you can’t ignore the power of conversion rate.

So, how exactly do you convince visitors to convert?

The first step is to understand what your target audience needs. After that, you should build a relationship with them. This can be achieved by creating great content which is helpful to them and answers any questions they have. Make sure you have a blog as this gives you a chance to connect with your target audience on a deeper level.

Your product descriptions should also be well written and highlight the benefits of your products and services, to entice your visitors to purchase them.

One of the most fundamental strategies for improving your conversion rate is including a call to action. This is a link or button that drives prospective customers into completing your desired goal, whether it’s buying a product or subscribing to a newsletter. You should ensure the button stands out properly on the page and uses the right text to prompt the user to click on it.

To Improve the Visual Appeal

If your website is more than two years old, you may want to redevelop it to incorporate the latest design trends. When visitors come to your site and find its disorganized, they will make some assumption about your company. But if the layout is harmonious and consistent, they will be much more likely to have a positive view of your company.

As you redevelop your website, you should see it as an investment, not a business expense. Make sure you evaluate what your customers need by understanding how the products or services can benefit them.

To Prevent Hacks

We are sometimes told something along the lines of “why would someone hack my website? It’s not a big website and their’s nothing for a hacker to gain. So, I think I don’t think security against hackers is relevant for me.” While you may think your website is immune because it’s a basic site, that’s not quite accurate. The thing is, hackers will create automated programs that systematically try to attack all websites simultaneously. They aren’t targeting you specifically. It’s just a program they use that attacked everyone. And, they will often target the security flaws they find on your site if you don’t keep it updated.