Is it Time for a Website Redesign? 3 Look and Feel Questions to Consider.

By Abby Woodington at Adoration

The importance of having a user friendly website is well understood as a must have marketing tool for all businesses who care about what they do.

Whether you’re using your site to sell a product directly to your customers or as a portfolio to promote services, your website is your 24/7 digital storefront and representative of what you offer the world. Your content should tell your customers why they should choose your business and convey your credibility.

If you’re a small or mid-sized business owner - or even an employee of one, you likely have a website wish list that you’d like to act on, if not a desire for a complete redesign.

However, you probably wear many hats and don’t have much extra time or a designated Marketing Director available to initiate and lead website projects. Therefore it can take a while to make the time to acknowledge that work is needed, let alone allocate the resources needed to make it happen.

So if the feeling that it’s time to prioritize your site persists, here are some questions to consider.

If the answer is no - or just not a resounding “yes”, then it’s definitely time for a change.

You could be wary of showing it off because it doesn’t reflect the best version of your business - or it doesn’t offer the complete answers about what you do and why customers should be interested. If this is true, it may even hinder the way you talk about your business in general, especially if you feel the need to apologize for it. “Sorry, our website needs to be updated.”

Imagine how you would speak about your business if you were confident in your site and eager for your customers to browse it. The goal should be to be as proud of your site as you are of your business accomplishments. If your site isn’t the representative of your company that you need it to be, it’s definitely time to prioritize an upgrade.

Trends aside, some websites just look like they haven’t been cared for in awhile.

Whether your site features photos that were taken too long ago, content that references dates in the past, or sloppy design that draws attention - these things can be minor to detrimental to having a site that you want to show off.

If outdated content is piling up because there isn’t a designated team member conducting updates, you may just need to delegate an internal point person and a process for editing content. But if you - or a customer - looks at your site and immediately feels like the entire look and feel of the site is old or outdated, then a website redesign is probably needed.

As more people from Gen Z enter the workforce and have a greater impact on business, it can be helpful to consider how your site looks to other age groups as well. Your audience likely encompasses people of various ages - and it can be helpful to verify that your site looks fresh to more than just your peers.

Good design is in the eyes of the beholder, but our digital world requires that your website looks great and has a seamless and intuitive browsing experience.

Many web development teams may be able to make a website function, but don’t bring a design centric skill set to the table. If you’re working with a developer who overlooks the visual and aesthetic components of the site and focuses only on functionality, it can lead to disappointment.

When my team collaborates on web design projects with a branding agency like Chalkbox, we know that the end result is going to look sharp. As design experts, Chalkbox can give the proper amount of focus to the visual aspects of the site, ensuring that the brand identity of the client is captured. As a result, the site tends to look the best it possibly can.

Once you are determining who you will work with on web design projects, make sure that both a designer and a developer are involved.

If you need a sign that it’s time to upgrade or redesign your site, and you answered “yes” to any of the questions above, consider this an affirmation.

Website work requires time and dedication, therefore many businesses ponder a website redesign for a long time before moving forward with it. Prioritizing your web project is much easier pondered upon than something easily put in the works. But if your website doesn’t represent your business properly today, it’s a great time to gather the resources needed to do the work that will make it the sales and marketing tool it can be.

Let us know what aspect of your site feels like it needs an upgrade. We spend many of our working days building design centric, user friendly websites with Chalkbox - and we would love to hear about how we can help you figure out next steps for your web project.