5 Signs Your Website Might Need a Refresh (and How to Fix Them)

Your brand changes over the years, so your website should evolve too. Unfortunately, brands fall into the trap of letting old, outdated content build up over time. If there is anything Marie Kondo has taught us this year, it’s that we need to focus on the things that bring us joy (and more website traffic).

Think your website might be stuck in the past? Look out for these 5 signs your website needs a refresh.

1. It’s not mobile-friendly

It’s not a secret that people are completely glued to their phones these days. But considering more than half of all website traffic is conducted on a mobile device, that could spell trouble for your website if it isn’t mobile-friendly.

Here are some tips for making your website more mobile-friendly:

• Scale images and create a responsive design that changes based on device size
• Avoid huge blocks of text on mobile versions of your website
• Test any pop-ups your website uses on mobile. Do they size appropriately for a small screen?

2. Your site loads slowly

It’s simple – if your website takes a long time to load, visitors aren’t wait around to see what’s on the other side.

Do yourself a favor and check your website speed on Google Lighthouse. If your speed is lagging, try using a content delivery network (CDN) to amp up your speed. A CDN ensures quicker transfer of all the assets needed for loading Internet content.

If your site is still slow to load, you may want to consider upgrading your website hosting.

3. There’s too much content

We all have that friend who never stops talking. They tell you every tiny detail about everything, and it’s just plain annoying.

Don’t let your website be that friend.

When it comes to website content, less is more. Take a look through your website and pare down unnecessary content. Have a blog post that’s out-of-date? Archive it. Find a video that no longer represents your brand? Delete it.

Purging your website is therapeutic (trust me on this, once you start you’ll want to delete everything) and it will lead to faster load times and better navigation. Speaking of…

4. It’s hard to navigate

Do you want to hear something shocking? People are really lazy.

That means the folks visiting your website are not going to waste time clicking through a dozen pages to find what they are looking for. In fact, many user experience (UX) professionals believe you only get three clicks before a visitor gets frustrated and heads to another site.

That’s not very many clicks, which is why streamlining your website’s navigation is so important.

Thankfully, there are some simple hacks you can use to improve navigation:

• Include a navigation bar along the top or down the side of your site.
• Move your most important pages closer to the homepage in the navigation bar.
• Remove any unnecessary pages from the navigation bar.
• Add a search bar to your site so visitors can find specific information.

5. Your site doesn’t rank for SEO

There are over a billion websites on the Internet. If you aren’t making SEO a priority, chances are your website is not on the first few pages of Google search results. In short – not many folks are seeing your content.

But don’t fret, pushing your website to the top of search results is possible if you work to improve your SEO. Utilizing keywords, adding internal and external links, and diversifying content will help get you there.

If you think your website needs more than a refresh, drop us a line. Our team can give your website a total overhaul.