4 Sure-Fire Signs That Your Website Needs a Makeover (Part 2)
March 6, 2011 by Global Nomad - (AW)
You might remember from Part 1 of this series that by makeover I’m not talking about a few tweaks here and there or fine-tuning what is already a great website; I mean major overhaul. But beyond the obvious clues like when your company gets a new logo or color scheme or changes their name, how can you know if the website needs a makeover? Here are some signs that it does.
3. Your website doesn’t have the capacity to go where you’re going.
If you find yourself regularly having to come up with awkward ways of getting your new content to fit into your site’s old layout, then maybe it’s time you redesign the site to accommodate the type of content you are coming up with these days. Here’s an example: Say your business has started a new program in which the employees are volunteering once a month at local charities, and this is a major step forward in your company’s attitude and involvement in the community. You would like to write about how that is going each month and publish it on your website because you want your consumers to know that you care. But your website doesn’t have an appropriate place for that type of information, so you end up putting the stories about the charity work in some random submenu of the rarely-visited “About Us” section of your site. You would like to find a way to announce it somewhere on the home page, even if it means just putting snippets that people can click if they want to read more, but your website’s layout just doesn’t have that flexibility.
Your website’s layout should not be restrictive; on the contrary, it should serve as a flexible framework in which you are free to put your content in as you need. It should provide you with some freedom to move, change, or add things as your company itself moves, changes, and grows. If you feel like you’ve outgrown your website, then consider doing a more complete website makeover rather than just trying to get by with little adjustments here and there. It could be worth it if the makeover translates into more website visitors (and therefore more customers).
4. You can’t find your own website in a Google search.
It’s a real problem when you’re on page 23 of Google search results and still looking for your website. When keywords relevant to your business are typed in, you ought to be found. Granted, some of us are in an industry that is overcrowded with competitors (like the web design industry) and there’s simply no way for all of us to end up on the first page of search engine results. But for those who are in a niche market or who target very specific demographics, such as counseling services for teens in north Texas for example, getting decent SEO ratings is certainly possible. And it could potentially make or break your business.
A total website makeover could be needed for SEO reasons alone simply because SEO involves so many aspects of a website. Optimizing your site for search engines affects page titles, headers, pictures, menus, publish dates, URLs, content, and just about every other part of a website. That’s why you’ve got to have SEO in mind from the very beginning stages of the website design process. So if you’re that company that is nowhere to be found in search engine results except for when the company’s entire name and slogan are entered, then that is a very good sign that your website needs a total makeover.
Can you think of any other signs that a website makeover is in order? Or, if you’ve gone through a website makeover recently, how did you recognize that it was needed? Did the work to redo the site pay off in the end? Please share your comments below.
