Accade LLC

Does your website need re-designing?

After a morning spent looking through the local yellow pages in our phone book, and viewing some of  the websites associated with the advertisements, I decided to put together a few questions to help business owners decide whether their website needs a makeover.

1. Have you updated your website with new material in the last 3 months?  Remember that your website is a reflection of your business.  If the website looks amateur and out-of-date, they will make the same assumptions about you.
2. Does your website match your current marketing and branding efforts?  I was amazed at how many websites I visited that did not even seem as though they belonged to the same company that published the phone book ad.  It is very important for brand awareness purposes that your website match your marketing collateral, so that you do not confuse your customers.
3. Are you able to measure your website visitors and conversion rates?  I read somewhere once that the only thing worse than working hard and not getting anywhere is getting results and not knowing how you got them.  This is true of your website, too.  One of the many great things about a website, if built correctly, is that it can be changed often.  However, if you don’t know what is working or not, how will you know what to change?
4. Does your website stand out (in a good way) compared to your competitors?   Internet users are impatient and usually make up their mind about a site within a few seconds.  So if your website does not make a good impression or give them what they are looking for, you can bet that they will look at your competitions websites as well.
5. Is your website listed on the 1st page of the search engine results for relevant keywords?  Remember just because you build something doesn’t mean that people are going to know its there.  Sometimes it is easier to increase your search engine traffic by re-designing your website vs. trying to build it into an already built website.

If you answered “no” to one or more of the above questions, then it is time to consider re-designing your website.  Remember that on average 81% of people will look at your website before picking up the phone to call you.  So, if you want to grow your business, you need to make sure that you are the company that they are calling.