There’s one stark similarity between technology and fashion: in both the worlds, trends come and go. What has appeal today might be of no value tomorrow.

And the web technology is no exception. You need to consistently update your website from time to time to meet new standards, improve load time, get the UX right, and make it mobile friendly.

Your company’s website is an asset as important as your sales team. It is probably the first element of your company your customers interact with. And in such cases, it is naturally the first impression of your business.

That’s why it is worth an investment to redesign your website from time-to-time.

But website redesign can mean different thing to different people. You need to understand what “redesign” of a website means to you.

Website redesign doesn’t necessarily means a complete overhaul from the header to footer of the website. If you’re thinking so, you don’t know what is it what you want to redesign or your website is really poor! “Redesign” also doesn’t necessarily mean making a functional modifications to assist you in reaching your marketing goal.

Here is all you need to know about website revamp and how you should identify if you need a website revamp.

Are you loosing customers?

You will be easily able to identify this by simply looking into Google Analytics. If you have a huge traffic and several hundreds going to lead generation page and not converting, it is sure sign that you’re losing customers. And you need to make some serious changes to your website.

This situation can be simply reduced to conversion optimization problem. But deep down it can be driven by several different aspects.

To get more insights, you can start analyzing your website performance over a time across following parameters:

• Number of visits/visitors/unique visitors (monthly average)
• Bounce rate (monthly average)
• Time on site (monthly average)
• Top-performing keywords (in terms of rank, traffic, and lead generation)
• Number of inbound linking domains
• Total number of new leads/form submissions (per month)
• Total amount of sales generated (per month)
• Total number of pages indexed
• Total number of pages that receive traffic

This will give a clear idea which area of your website needs improvement. You can use tools like Google analytics and Hubspot for better tracking of website performance.

Does your website design look outdated?

Your website is face of your business. Its look conveys a lot about you, your team, and even your own credentials. If it’s been a few years since your website has been updated, then it probably need a refresh.

But at the same time, this question is vague as to what does it mean to “look outdated”. If you have a little experience in website design, you can easily point it yourself. Otherwise, you can consult a web development agency.

Before the words or your marketing copy comes the design. That’s what give the structure to your website content. If your web design makes it too difficult for the user to focus on the text or important parts, you need a website redesign right now.

However studies have shown that visitors have more trust and are willing to spend more time with that website which have better UX. This makes sense. When you’re out in the market, a dirty store in real world will naturally bring lesser customers in. Your website represents your business online just like a store or office represents your business in the real world.

Is your website user friendly?

User-friendly is concerned with two aspects:

1. Web speed
2. Information accessibility
3. Navigation

Your website should not be designed to make users see what you want them to see. It should be designed to help the users find the information they want to see. To make every corner of the website useful for them.

Here are a few questions you can ask your customers and website visitors in survey to understand how user-friendly your website is:

• Does your visitor find most basic things on your site easily or not?
• Is your website easy to navigate?
• Is valuable content easy to access for users?

Is your website secure?

According to Forbes, 30,000 websites are hacked every day.

Outdated websites are naturally prone to hacks. New updates are meant to secure your website on all fronts. If you’re storing users’ data, securing your website becomes the top most concern. We all know what happened with Ashley Madison!

Although there’s no practical way to make a website hacker proof, but a security guarantee will make sure that if your website is ever hacked or infected you’re not left with the bill. At least, you should get an SSL certificate.

You can use Linux Foundation’s has Let’s Encrypt project to get “a free, automated, and open certificate authority.”

Essentially, a security guarantee is an insurance policy that says your website company will have your back if anything happens.  Make sure you’re protected by one.

Is your website isn’t responsive?

According to Statista report , 38.6% of website traffic comes from mobile.

With over a billion mobile devices operating, it is unquestionable that your website must be smooth on mobile.

A smooth website is different from having an app, and even better than having an app in some cases. In fact, India’s leading online movie and ticket booking platform’s, Bookmyshow, founder Ashish Hemrajani said that their main focus is on mobile web rather than app.

In past few years, number of searches on mobile has exceeded than that of desktop searches. And the numbers are exceeding rapidly.

Implementing responsive design in your new redesign process can automatically trigger content to adjust device based on screen size. The user friendly experience of the website can consistently increase traffic to your websites because you’re making the user experience comfortable on a mobile device.

If you are site isn’t responsive then there are chances that you’re losing leads and maybe even your potential customer who are on mobile devices.

Is it difficult to find content on your site?

You can easily find if people are finding content easily on your website or not by going to “Content Flow” section of Google Analytics. High bounce rate can also convey the problems with site navigation and content accessibility.

This is where you will need help from a UX professional who can perform an audit on your website and identify the areas that needs improvement.

If you are planning to make a content strategy, then a web redesign may be wise. That way your great content, post, and ebook are easily organized on website.

Is your site is on the first page?

One of the main objectives of the business is to drive sale and how can it’s possible to drive sale if your website is not on the first page of Google Search.

So, it’s time that you roll up your sleeves and get busy. Look to your competitor website and take a note what you like and what you don’t like. Once you analyze your competitor’s website you will know which area from your website needs improvement.

By tweaking those problems in the redesign process, you can improve SERP ranking of your website.

How Concierge Auctions increased web traffic with strategic website revamp

Concierge Auctions is a New York-based real estate auction company offering a smart and efficient way to buy and sell the world’s most unique, high-end properties.

Operating since 2008, they have helped sell over a half-billion dollars in luxury real estate worldwide.

Challenge

The old website of the CONCIERGE AUCTIONS lacked a modern user experience and fell flat in representing unique properties for auction. It also didn’t capture the youthful, vibrant culture of the Concierge team.

The old CMS limited their ability to regularly optimize pages for conversion and keep their web content fresh.

Several key pages were also missing basic on-page SEO components, thus stifling the organic growth for every property listing posted.

With an old, flat, stale design it was hard for Concierge to convince prospects that they offered the absolute best solution for marketing and selling a luxury home.

The team knew that if they want to generate a lead, they will need to revamp their website.  They wanted their website to represent   the high-quality auction process.

Not only this, Concierge need a more modern user interface but also sufficient visual space to showcase each unique property that has an average listing price of $5.4 million.

Since each buyer, seller, bidder, and the agent was essential to their business growth, their website needed to be a lead generator in all of these categories.

Concierge Auctions targets a specific audience when it comes to generating leads and finding buyers for luxury homes. Their audience ranges from real estate agents looking for a fast selling solution, to homeowners looking to bid on a second or third home.

The interface expectations of these users are high. Each of these buyers is tech-savvy and values a high-quality web experience.

Solution

Step 1: Wire frame auditing and specification development

CONCIERGE AUCTION team organized a number of wire-frames for the website which was audited. It was then infused with inbound marketing for functional user workflow and better user experience.

Step 2: Design

Concierge team got their homepage, blog and property listing templates designed to build an optimal visual and user experience.

They work hard in creating a website which met the high standard of Concierge website users.

Step 3: Development

After finalizing the design of the website, they started working on the feature which was designed and developed functionality according to Concierge Auction’s business needs and goals.

The features included were:

1. Social Sign-In and Sign-In Security
2. Conversion Forms – HubSpot Integration and Lead Routing
3. Property Database
4. Social Integration
5. Responsive Templates and Custom Mobile Layouts
6. Special Consideration for Images on Mobile and Retina Devices
7. Search Engine Optimization

Step 4: Content Migration and Launch

They collected hundred of properties, images, and documents. They created a template and process structure to collect content for webpage and email copy to Concierge team, and the Concierge Auctions team wrote new content guided by a keyword research.

Result

Concierge Auctions launched their new website in October 2013 and has seen massive growth while also landing big sales and growing the audience of their luxury home auctions.

Along with added media attention, Concierge has seen tremendous growth from visits and leads.

The new website has showcased Concierge Auctions as the premier luxury home auction house and positioned them as a leader in their industry.

Focusing on SEO, modern web design, sophisticated site functionality, and audience targeting has generated a dramatic result.

• + 232% increase in organic visits when compared to the previous 6 months.
• + 185% increase in leads from organic traffic when compared to the previous 6 months.

Conclusion

Your website is the mirror of your business, your personality.  It’s you who have to take care of it in order to earn good profit in business. Identifying the problems where your site is sinking your business shouldn’t cause you to go to the panic mode and it saves your money and time too.

So, if you think that you need website revamp, then you need to identify which part of the site need update and start working to improve it.

The post Website Revamp: Is Your Site Sinking Your Business’s Ship? appeared first on  - Snyxius.