How to refresh your website in 2021

If your website has not been updated in the last year, it might be a good time to refresh it. A website refresh could be making some updates to your existing content or design, adding photos to a gallery, blog posts, or redesigning your website completely.

But how do you know when is a good time to redesign your website and how do you revitalise your website? In this post, we will explain some ways you can achieve this.

How to know when it is time to update.

When it comes to website redesign, there are a few telling signs to keep an eye out for. If you’ve noticed any of the following, then it’s definitely time to take action.

Low conversions — if people are visiting your site but not buying or signing up as much as you’d like them to, your website design might have a lot to do with it.

Poor page loading speed — these days, visitors expect your website to load in 3 seconds or less. Also, search engines favor fast loading websites. You can check your website speed with a tool like Pingdom

High bounce rate – This is when visitors don’t browse the site beyond the home page. Your Google Analytics should tell you what’s your average bounce rate. For most websites, the bounce rate falls between 26 and 70%. If your website is higher than that, a website refresh could help you keep visitors on your site longer.

Low search engine rankings — It is ideal to be on page 1 of Google. If your website is not showing for your desired keywords, it’s time to update your content strategy.

Unappealing website — like it or not, design matters. In fact, according to research, first impressions are 94% design-related.

Security concerns — If there is no lock or you are seeing a security warning when you try to visit your site, your sales could plummet. Implementing an SSL certificate could help boost your sales and overall conversion rates. An SSL also helps your search engine ranking.

4 Ways to Refresh Your Website

Here are some suggestions you can implement right now:

Refresh your Story

The past year has changed the world and we have all been impacted by the global pandemic. Our story has changed!

Maybe your goals have changed or you have adapted and are moving in a new direction.

Then it is time to update your website with your new story or mission statement.

Replace Stock Photography with real photos

Now more than ever, website visitors and customers want to interact with real people. According to research, images of real people improve confidence as well as conversions. As such, your website visitors and potential customers want to see the people behind the brand so it’s in your best interest to give them what they want.

Reduce the amount of stock photography and replace them with authentic, relevant, real photos. This increases transparency and builds trust in your brand. You can show them your team members, including photos of your offices, and show them behind-the-scenes of how your products are made.

Use Minimal Design/ Declutter

Decluttering is trendy…for a good reason. Minimalistic design is trending in a huge way. You see it everywhere from Apple and Google phone and OS designs to home design and simple living.

You can declutter your website by getting rid of everything that doesn’t improve your bottom line. Also make your text easy to read with headings, short paragraphs, bullet points,  adding white space, and clean easy to read fonts.

Make Your Calls To Action Clear

One of the biggest problems with most websites is that they make their visitors guess what they should do. This leads to visitor frustration and they are more likely to leave rather than stick around and try to figure out where they should go next.

You can fix this by making your primary call to action easy to find. Add it to your main navigation, in your hero section, and throughout your website.

Place any secondary or transitional calls to action appropriately.

Making your calls to action clear and more visible could be as simple as changing some text links to buttons to make them more prominent or adding buttons in the hero section and navigation.

If you would like help with this or would like an audit on your site to pinpoint where improvements can be made, Contact us here