Top 10 Signs You Need a New Website

From time to time every website needs to be redesigned in order to keep its content and appearance up to date. Does your website show any of the top 10 signs below?

1. You built it yourself

Unless you have a web design past or you had your website built by a friend or relative who is a web design professional, websites which were built by someone without an advanced knowledge of best web design practices stand out as requiring professional attention.

It may be that you bought some cheap software to build your website or went on some training course promising to make you a web designer, but in one way or another, cheap web design software or DIY websites always lack elements which a professionally developed website delivers. This could be anything from cross browser accessibility issues, search engine optimisation faults or just lacking best practices which would be present if your website was professionally designed.

Another consideration is the time you've invested designing your own website, including the time you've spent learning and troubleshooting as you go along. Add up the hours you've spent doing this and not focussing on your normal business activities and work out how much you'd have earned in that time. Then ask yourself if you've really saved any money. The chances are you haven't.

Remember: If your website looks unprofessional - your company looks unprofessional.

2. You have a welcome page or Flash intro

If you have a welcome page which reads something like "Welcome to my website - click here to enter...", or you have an animated Flash intro page with a "Skip Intro" option, it's safe to say you're putting the vast majority of your visitors off before they even learn a thing about you. Not only that, but you're also putting off the search engine robots who are learning nothing about your website when they land on your first page. Search engines like content, welcome pages don't have it and they can't read Flash elements.

3. Poor choice of colour scheme

For the majority of websites, a colour scheme of one base colour and two supporting colours are sufficient. The base colour would typically be the background which your content sits on and it's recommended that this is a light, neutral colour - there's a reason that most websites on the internet have a white background, it's because it's a good design practice. Your choice of colour scheme is crucial to how professional your website looks and also has accessibility implications. For example, your text should be easy to read against it's background.

4. Your website doesn't have a clear and consistent navigation structure

Your website's pages should be easy to move through from one to the next. You should have a menu in a consistent location across all of your pages. Remember, you look at your website all the time so are familiar with where things are, but a visitor to your website will give you 10 seconds (if you're lucky) to show them what they're looking for and if they don't see the link they need or the menu options they have - they'll be heading for the back button and on to your competitor's website.

5. People keep telling you they can't find your website

This one is simple - you could have the most amazing website in the world with the best offers, services or products around, but if no-one can find it then it's worthless. Get in touch with a web designer or developer who can demonstrate success in building search engine friendly websites.

6. Your site hasn't been updated since it was built

Just like your business evolves over time, so does what's expected from a company's website. Depending on the nature of their business, proactive companies will typically update the content on their website every few months and have a complete redesign every 2-3 years.

7. Your images look pixelated and take ages to load

Website visitors hate waiting for web pages to load, and one of the main elements which affect loading times are images. If the images on your website s-l-o-w-l-y scroll into view, the chances are people haven't waited for them and gone elsewhere before they've even looked at your other content.

8. Your website only works in Internet Explorer

It's amazing how many web designers still don't take other web browsers into consideration when developing a website. There was a time when the vast majority of website users used Internet Explorer as their web browser, but those days have gone. Now, the most popular web browser is Mozilla Firefox, which has over 50% of the market share. (Source: W3Schools) This means that if your website doesn't work or display correctly in Firefox, the chances are that every other visitor to your website can't access it. The simple reasons why a website may not work in Firefox and other web browsers is poor or outdated coding which doesn't meet standards compliance. Learn more about the importance of a standards compliant website.

If you'd like to check your website, you can download Firefox and give it a try. It's free and most people don't go back!

9. You have intrusive flashing images, animations or automatic pop-up windows

Cheap, nasty, off-putting and a clear sign that you haven't updated your website for years.

10. Your website uses frames

The use of frames was once common around the internet but these days the flaws they have regarding search engines, accessibility and usability have led to knowledgeable web developers avoiding them.

If you find that your website is showing any of these signs, why not get in touch and discuss a new website with us?

© DX Net Solutions - Article published 24th April, 2009.