How You Know It’s Time For A New Website
If you already have a business website, it should be no surprise that competing for client attention online is no easy task. Getting your website at the top of search results requires more than good content. Even if your site is just a few years old, it may not be performing as well as it should be. The internet, user expectations, and user behaviors are all constantly changing. So should your website.
Here are a few factors to consider when deciding it’s time for a new website.
Google Speed Score
Will visitors give up waiting for your site to load? A slow site is hurting your conversion and your credibility with search engines. It will be especially slow when people are visiting with their mobile devices, because they usually have slower connections and slower internal components that are responsible for rendering the website. When our team builds a site, we make sure your site scores well here. Not only will your visitors increase, but more of your message is seen in a shorter time.
Google Mobile-Friendly Test
How easy is it for visitors to use your website on a small screen? Can they easily make purchases? Sign up for your lists? Browse your products? If your website scores poorly here, you’re likely missing out on a large portion of website visitors. When it comes to mobile views, visitors are more easily confused and frustrated on smaller screens because they can see less at a time, which means they’re more likely to leave your website and find one that is more mobile responsive. In fact, visitors are five times more likely to leave your site if it isn’t mobile friendly, according to Google Small Business.
The best solution for this is to rethink your content strategy - how your site is organized and information is presented - for smaller screens. A few things we always keep in mind when organizing a website are: Can the site be fully comprehended on a small screen? Is the navigation easy to use? How many clicks or taps does it take to accomplish something?
Legibility
Is your site easy to read by non-native English speakers or people with less than ideal vision? The demographics of North America are changing. Even across the remainder of the globe, many people who speak English are not native speakers. Your type size, typeface choices will affect the visitor’s ease when reading your website. Improving legibility could be as simple as bumping up the size, but older websites make this more difficult. In creating a long-term website plan, a thorough analysis of your audience and legibility is crucial.
Visitor Behavior Metrics
Do people come to your site and then disappear? With analytics and behavior tracking, you can glimpse into the reading and interaction data your visitors create. From this behavioral data you can see where they are going, where they are stopping, what’s getting the most clicks and what’s getting the least attention. Better messaging can ease some of these pains but for for better ROI, it’s best to reorganize your site’s content based on the common patterns you see in the data and the outcomes you want from your site. By monitoring our clients’ website analytics in our Content Management-as-a-Service plan, we are able to advise new content strategies, make incremental changes for testing and put them on a path to achieving their business goals.
The Undiscovered Cause
Have you seen good scores from speed, do you have good numbers in your analytics? There are other factors that influence a website’s performance that you may not be able to see, such as your web host's configuration or the technology it uses. Poor hosting is actually one of the factors that slow your website speed, which decreases your traffic. It can also make your website more vulnerable to security threats since poor hosting usually comes with poor support who may not be able to help in the event that your site is compromised. The most important effect, however, is your inability to grow under limited hosting capabilities. We do our best to avoid all of these threats by using enterprise grade cloud technology - the Envoc Cloud. This way, our clients have optimal traffic, safety and growth potential with their website.
Your website is a crucial communications piece for your sales team and business. If your website isn't achieving and exceeding your business goals, our solutions consultants can help you create digital presence and content strategies that will.