No matter how recently you built your website, there is a good chance that it needs a makeover. Here are five signs that it's time for that website makeover:
How many of your website visitors are return visitors? Do you even know? If not, you need to immediately add Google Analytics to your website. It is free to use and can give you very valuable information about the people visiting your site. Seriously, add it now if you haven't already. Everyone loves getting new visitors to their website, but it's important to note the number of return visitors as well. If people aren't returning to your website, there's probably a problem with your site. Maybe your content isn't engaging, maybe your imagery isn't appealing, maybe you're not adding new content as frequently as you should. Whatever the problem, your site needs to be set up to attract new visitors and to get them to return frequently.
A website is a sales tool. If you aren't utilizing it to capture new leads, then it's essentially failing. Your site needs to be engaging and also provide quality content that a visitor finds valuable enough to provide their information and convert to a lead. Far too many websites don't have any sort of call-to-action, landing page, or thank you page. If you're not collecting leads, it's makeover time.
A website needs to be constantly monitored. If you're not making sure that your software is always up-to-date, then you are just opening yourself up for malware and a terrible user experience. Not all software lasts forever and building a website and forgetting about it is a terrible idea. Themes get discontinued, plugins die off, and widgets stop working. Take some time to go through your site (on the front and backend) to make sure everything is working as it should and that the software is all updated to the most recent versions.
Websites just cannot be successful for as long as they used to. The days of 10 year old websites don't (and shouldn't) exist anymore. Like we mentioned, consumers expect more from businesses today and they'll expect even more tomorrow. Your site has to live up to expectations and provide a great user experience. That just isn't possible for a website that is more than three years old. Three years doesn't seem like a lot of time, but so much can change in such a short span. Think about this...
In 2008, Myspace was the top social network in the world. Three years later, Facebook had taken over that position, Myspace had lost over forty million unique visitors per month, lost both co-founders, laid off the vast majority of its staff, and essentially became the butt of all social media jokes. [Huffington Post]
A lot can change in three years and if your site hasn't changed in the last three years, your baby probably has developed a unibrow. ;)
Every business' goal is to have the visits to their website grow consistently. If your site visits have started to plateau or even *gasp* started to decline consistently, then it's time to take a long hard look at your website and your overall marketing campaign. If people are not showing interest in what your website has to offer or if they're not coming at all then you likely have an ugly baby. It's important to look at all aspects of your website to determine what can be improved from SEO, overall design, user friendliness, content, blog, and even color.
It's not easy to admit that your baby is ugly, but the sooner you realize that it may be time for that website makeover, the better off you'll be. You always need to be providing value to your visitors and if any of these five signs apply to you, it's time to look objectively at your site. Your online marketing can only be as good as your website.
Now that you've probably realized that your web baby isn't the prettiest, it's time to start thinking about what that website makeover looks like. We ALWAYS recommend starting with SEO.