1. Outdated Website Design
Website design standards are constantly changing, and if you aren’t keeping up with the changing landscape, customers will view your business, brand, or ministry as irrelevant or outdated. I don’t know about you, but those are two words I never want to hear associated with my business.
If we think about it, websites have changed significantly since the early days of the internet. No longer are the days of text-laden sites, where the primary function was to obtain information. If you are still rocking a website that is predominantly filled with text, there’s a high likelihood you are missing the mark with your customers, search engines, and visitors.
2. Responsive Website Design
According to statista.com, just over 50% of all web traffic comes from mobile phones. There is a huge movement within the website design community that believes design should start with mobile first. That has not been universally adopted in the industry, but the point is, if the mobile website experience you are providing to visitors is bad, you won’t convert them into customers.
They, again, are going to view your business, brand, or ministry, as outdated and irrelevant. They will ask themselves if this company can’t even invest in their mobile website, how can I trust them with my services? It’s a valid question, and it’s not unfair that consumers would think this way. It’s our job as business owners to put forth a concerted effort to show them why we should earn their business.
3. No Video
Today’s website design trends are moving away from photos and text to video. Human attention spans are shortening, so you have to catch your prospective customers’ attention with video. We are a video viewing, TV loving society. That might make some of you grimace a bit, but the truth of the matter is we watch a lot of TV. The same is true when someone comes to your website. Not only is your job to get relevant information to a potential client, but also to entertain them. If you can succeed in doing both, there is a good chance you are going to convert a visitor into a customer.
At Empowered Creative, we talk to every single possible client about getting involved with video for their website design. Recently, we redesigned a website for our friends over at GCM Built, and we did a promotional video to help people understand who they are, what they are about, and why they should want to work with their company.
We also did a short promotional video for our friends at Rent Sound Gear.
The simple point of the matter is that video is trumping photos and text. If you are not investing in videos to try to reach your customer base you are missing the mark, and you have a greater chance of having visitors bounce.
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4. Company Message Has Changed
Culture and recent events help to craft our marketing messages. Over time, as both of those things change, our messages need to change as well. In many cases that doesn’t just mean changing text on a website, it means a total revamping of photos, video, and text. If we look over the last 20 years, there are common images today that 20 years ago were acceptable that today just wouldn’t be acceptable. As our society evolves, we have to be cognizant of socially acceptable imagery and text and make sure that we are not offending our potential customers.
Many of us remember Joe Cool, the smoking camel from the Camel Cigarette commercials. At one point, this camel was one of the most famous marketing figures in the United States. He was dressed up as cool, and smoking a cigarette was part of the cool image. Obviously, today, we know that smoking causes cancer, emphysema, etc. and smoking should not be depicted in this manner.
The point here is that some things that were once socially acceptable may not be anymore, and a refining of your message may need to happen.
5. Website Functionality
There was a time when websites simply were static pages that displayed information onto your monitor. You could partake of the information, learn new information, and move on. Today, however, websites can be multi-faceted and can performs several functions. Website design, today, now includes having the knowledge to know how to integrate various other functions into a site. It’s important to take a look at your business and ask the question is my website doing all that I need it to do for me?
Maybe you need an online store to sell your products? COVID has hit us all hard, and going to the store now holds a certain risk. But what if you could open your store online and sell your products there? What about taking payments online? On our Empowered website when a client signs up for a product they pay directly on the site. You can find a few examples of this on our website maintenance and search engine optimization service pages. Do you need a platform for training your employees? Not only can your website be for visitors and customers, but it can also be a space to train your employees too.
The point is that website design involves more than external design, it now involves understanding how to implement functionality through the site.
6. Low Visitor Count
A question every website owner should ask themselves, “Is anybody seeing my website?” If the answer is no, then the next question they need to ask, “How can I improve the visibility of my website?” This is where could website design comes into play. At Empowered Creative, for example, if a client is interested in gaining traction and visibility online we consult them on they can do that. We specifically offer our SEO Services to help with bringing greater visibility to their website in an organic fashion.
Nonetheless, if you depend on your website to generate any portion of funds for your business, you need to be interested and aware of the number of visitors that visit your site, and the number of visitors who actually stick around your site. This is part of any good SEO service that’s out there, and it’s part of what we do at Empowered Creative to help our customers.
Conclusion
There is a reason that website design is a professional job for somebody who is qualified. There is a lot to think about, and a lot of skills they need to have in order to produce a website design that fits the clients needs. This list is not exhaustive and there could many other reasons you need a new website.
If you find yourself unhappy, dissatisfied, and ready to make a change feel free to reach out to us at Empowered Creative. We would love to learn about your business, your dreams, and your goals and see how we can partner in helping you be successful. It’s really simple to get started simply click the “Get A Quote” button at the top right of the page, fill out the short form, and the process will be started.