9 Signs It’s Time to Get a Professional Website
Are you wondering if you need a professional website?
Well, your website is a 24/7 marketing tool, so it’s important to keep it up and make sure it’s still working for you and your business the way you intend.
Things change over the years, such as goals and dreams. The goals that you had 4 years ago are probably not the same goals you have now. Believe it or not, your business goals and more can affect your website design.
As you re-evaluate and change your goals, you should have your website redesigned to help achieve them.
Here are nine signs to help you determine if it’s time to get a professional website.
1. ) Your Website Isn’t Mobile-Friendly.
Most website traffic comes from mobile devices, so it’s vital your website can easily be adjusted to the size of the device a visitor is using. Since it’s mostly from mobile devices, such as phones and tablets, make sure your website can stand the test.
When your content is not easily viewed on mobile devices you will miss out on opportunities. Those opportunities could have led to building trust with your target audience, increasing sales, and having your audience recommend you to their family, friends, and even co-workers.
Imagine this, you are looking for a new vegan restaurant to try and come across a new place you want to look into. You click on the search result you found that leads to the vegan restaurant’s website and when it loads part of the content is cut off at the side of the screen.
Now, you are not able to view everything the vegan restaurant has to offer because of it. You are now frustrated and annoyed. Then what happens next? You leave the website immediately.
At that moment it doesn’t matter if the vegan restaurant has the best food in town because you had a negative experience that made you feel they are not professional, trusting, and don’t take the experience of customers in all forms seriously.
You may think this is far-fetched, but many people have experienced this and come up with those conclusions.
Once someone has a negative experience it’s harder to get them to change their mind and see another side, but not impossible. Take the next step to getting a professional website that is mobile-friendly.
2. ) Your Website Isn’t Helping You Reach Your Eco-Conscious Business Goals.
Are you not seeing an increase in sales?
Are you not making the memorable connections you have been hoping for?
If your business is not growing and you’re not reaching your business goals, then it’s time to have a professional website designed and built for you. An effective vegan business website will help to increase your return on investment (ROI) and can turn your disappointment into encouragement.
Think about what your business goals are and if you don’t know, then I highly suggest you take some time to think of some. Grab yourself a notebook and a pencil and find a place to sit down to think.
Your goals need to be a priority! Once you know what your business goals are it will be easier to determine what your website goals should be. It would be best if you had a clear strategy.
3. ) It’s Difficult to Navigate Your Website.
Make the time your visitors spend on your website easy. Guide them along, don’t just let them wander and figure out where to find everything on their own. They need to be able to easily find the information they need.
Visitors should be able to find out what your vegan business is all about, the services and/or products you offer, and how to get in contact with you without a problem.
Don’t leave your website visitors feeling overwhelmed and wondering what they should do next. Remember to think of it as if it’s a guided excursion.
4. ) You are Rebranding Your Vegan, Environmentally Friendly Business.
A brand is how you are perceived. It’s what your audience, including the world, thinks and feels about your business. With that said, if you are rebranding, then you should have your website consistent with your new brand identity.
It’s important to have a cohesive brand identity on all marketing platforms, including your vegan business website.
Some reasons to rebrand are:
Wanting to attract a new target audience
Your vegan business has changed in a big way
Wanting to increase prices
To showcase your unique brand story accurately
To stand out from your competitors
5. ) It’s Hard for You to Make Updates.
Even if you have great content, your website is aesthetically pleasing, and you effectively guide your visitors through your website you may think you don’t need anything else. You may be thinking you don’t need a website redesign. You can benefit from a website redesign even if you “just” have difficulty making updates to your current website.
Do you enjoy saving time and money? I know I do!
Using a content management system (CMS), such as Squarespace, can make your life easier. When you utilize a CMS making minor updates and adding more content will be faster, which will help save you time to focus on other important things on your to-do list in your business or give you more time to have fun.
When you consistently provide quality content you can help improve your website’s ranking in search results. This helps more people see your website and can lead to reaching your business goals faster.
6. ) Your Design Feels Dated.
If your design seems like it’s from another decade, then you should get it updated. Even if your design was great at the time, what you had then may not work well for you now. Your business goals are most likely different, which can change the way your website should be designed.
Keep your website in tip-top shape! Take the time to take care of your website and it will help serve you and your business long term.
Think about it.
Would you leave your windows dusty and dirty?
Would you not get your oil changed?
Would you not feed your pet?
Well, I’m going to go out on a limb and say you answered no to everything.
Remember your vegan business website is your virtual storefront. If visitors “go into your store” and see it look rundown, they will most likely leave and go somewhere else to shop.
Give them a great experience instead. There is no better time than the present to get a new website redesigned.
7. ) You are Attracting the Wrong Audience.
Are you reaching the wrong audience, not your ideal customer/client?
Are you getting inquiries that are not what you were wishing for?
If this sounds familiar then it’s time to change gears and go back to the drawing table. You want to make sure you understand your target audience’s interests, pain points, and needs. Have content on your website they find engaging and relevant to them.
Since most people are busy with their lives it’s a great idea to have your content broken up into smaller paragraphs. Try to avoid super long paragraphs as much as possible.
Focus more on the number of lines instead of the number of sentences. For instance, having a paragraph that is 4 to 6 lines long instead of 4 to 6 long sentences will be better.
One sentence can be multiple lines long and if you have a total of 4 to 6 long sentences you might end up with a paragraph that’s half a page long.
8. ) You Have a High Bounce Rate.
Let’s talk about the term bounce rate. Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors that leave a website after only viewing one page. With that said, you want your bounce rate to not be high. When your bounce rate is high it means that your website visitors are not finding what they are looking for.
It can also mean when they initially saw your website its design wasn’t appealing to them and decided to leave.
Think about getting a professional website designed and built for you to help visitors find what they are looking for and reduce your bounce rate.
9. ) Your Website Loads Slowly.
Have you ever gone to a website and it took what felt like forever to load or never loaded at all?
I’m sure you have. Think about how you felt in the moment.
Does feeling frustrated and annoyed sound familiar?
All it takes is a 1-second delay for a web page to load to cause visitors to leave. In society today, it’s so common for people to get things quickly. I like to call it a microwave society. People want what they want right now.
According to research found on the Neil Patel website, 40% of visitors will abandon a website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load.
It can be detrimental to your business, if your website speed is slow. This will contribute to an increase in bounce rate and I’m sure you don’t want that, right?
Now, did any of these nine signs resonate with you?
If you are interested in getting help with a professional website for your vegan business, here are my services. Please get in contact with me.