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6 Signs It's Time For A Redesign:
1) Lack Of Clarity About What Your Business Does
If you weren't you and you visited your website for the first time, would you instantly understand
what your company does? One of the most common website failings we encounter is that of vagueness. Within the
first few seconds of landing on your website, the visitor must be told who you are, what you offer and how doing
business with you will benefit him. If your site isn't getting this across with absolute clarity, opportunities are definitely
being lost. We teach our clients how to define the core benefits of what they offer to the public and we redesign sites
so that this most important message is given top billing.
2) Lack Of Professional Visual Presentation
If your website looks homemade or was built by a hobbyist rather than a pro, you are giving visitors a less-than-ideal impression
of the quality of your products or services. There's no shame in starting small, and many of our website redesign clients have come
to us because they needed to start out on the web with a free template or other inexpensive site solution such as Microsoft Frontpage, but over time have realized
how an unprofessional presentation in holding them back. We are able to take the contents of a homemade-looking site and re-purpose them
in an utterly professional, gorgeous new design that results in a completely different user impression of the quality and trustworthiness
of the business. If you want your visitors to take you seriously, you must treat your website with total seriousness. There are no two ways about this.
3) Lack Of Professional Knowledge
You won't enjoy the benefits of a professional website unless a professional level of knowledge was put into the development of it. We believe that small business owners
are experts at what they do, whether they sell clocks, build homes or provide legal counsel. Unless you have the desire and time to devote years of
study to the disciplines of design, SEO, human usability, copywriting and marketing, you will likely be much better off hiring an expert who can put his or her skills in these
fields to work for you while you continue to devote yourself to what you do best - running your business. As designers, it's obvious to us the moment we visit any site
whether or not it was professionally developed, and while this may be less obvious to the average user, he definitely knows whether the site is easy to find and use. If your
website was built by a hobbyist rather than a pro and is failing to thrive,
chances are it is suffering from points 4 and 5 on our list.
4) Lack Of Crawlability
If the person who built your website was not educated about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), chances are, it's suffering from some serious problems.
Typical issues we encounter in this scenario include websites heavy in Flash, Javascript, frames or images that can't be easily crawled by search engines, resulting
in pages that are virtually blank when the search engine bots come to look at them. It's not overstating things to call this a fatal flaw. Search engine rankings and traffic
are important to nearly every business, but if the search engines can't read your pages, your website has little chance of achieving success. Any designer you
work with must understand the basics of writing crawlable code, implementing good basic SEO practices on each and every page of your site, and developing your
whole website in compliance with Google's Webmaster Guidelines. We consider SEO to be a basic component of any good website, but if your original site was built without
this knowledge, prepare for an SEO-based redesign of your site making a huge difference for your company. Time and again, we've watched our website redesign clients go from
nowhere to page one in Google's results and we've seen increases of as much as 400% in client profits after working with us. Like any legitimate design firm, we make a strong
point of not guaranteeing results - after all, we don't control the search engines - but this we know with certainty: if your website can't be crawled and isn't optimized,
opportunities are definitely being lost for your business.
5) Lack Of Good Human Usability
You own your website, but it's your visitors who use it. Build it for their
comfort! Nearly every website we've ever re-designed was suffering from minor
or major issues with navigation menus, forms, site structure and calls to
action that were making it hard, instead of beautifully easy, for humans to
use the site. Frequently, the biggest task in redesigning a website lies
in understanding all of the available content and organizing it into a
layout that not only enables users to make their desired actions, but
that persuades them to take the actions you most want them to take.
We have often noticed that older sites which originally had a good
overall plan ruling their structure can become a confusing maze as time goes
on and new pages and products get added. The original plan is lost and
the contents of the site become riddled with obstacles and pitfalls. We bring
considerable experience to identifying such human usability issues and
correcting them so that the flow of your website makes it a pleasure for your
visitors to use it while calling them to your most desired actions,
whether that's filling out a form, picking up a phone or purchasing a
product.
6) Lack Of Time
If it's July and there's a Christmas tree on your homepage, you've got a big problem on your hands and are sending a message to your users that your business is neglected. Visitors may even think you've gone out of business. Small business owners are definitely the busiest people we know, and if lack of time has resulted in portions of your website, or even your whole website, becoming outdated and stale, freshening things up can have a very positive
effect on your profits and your morale. Quite frequently, a complaint we hear from small business owners is that the person who originally built their website
has become hard to reach. Perhaps the site was built by a relative, a friend or a hobbyist who has moved onto other things and this has resulted in website
neglect. Not only can we redesign your outmoded site, but we also form long term webmastering relationships with our clients and respond promptly to all
needs as they arise. This isn't a hobby for us - it's what we do for a living and we have seen first-hand the difference it makes when a business is presented
as current, lively and up-to-date. If the work you are already doing to run your business isn't leaving room for webmastering your site, or if your original
webmaster is no longer meeting your needs, we are ready to devote our time
to you. That's what we're here for!
Sound Familiar?
If any of the points on our list of 6 common website issues hit home with you, chances are, it's time to consider a professional redesign of your website.
Whether your issues are visual, technical or not covered in the above list, we are eager to learn the story of your business and to help you tell that
story on the web in a professional, powerful new way. Perhaps the most common scenario we encounter is that a small business owner may just not have a
clear idea of how to present his or her business. You may need advice in many areas, from logo design, to website design and development, to copywriting,
SEO or specific areas of marketing.
You may be wishing you could just talk to someone who would take a look at your business and help you to identify
the right way to present what you do to the public. This attention, insight and actionable advice is what you can expect from Solas Web Design, coupled
with our readiness to put our suggestions and your wishes into action.
Our goal is the same as yours: to see you owning a website that is a real
asset to your company and a source of personal pride. If profits and pride are what you seek, we are ready to hear from you!
Just need advice?
If you already have a webmaster with whom you're happy, or you
are capable of redesigning your website yourself, but want professional guidance in
doing so, we offer a special service just for you. Our expert website review,
The Long Email, enables you to get a professional audit of your website for a very modest investment.
You will benefit from receiving our advice and suggestions which you can then put into
action yourself. Read more about The Long Email service.
Would more education be helpful?
We enjoy publishing case studies of our website redesign projects on our blog. We invite
you to read the following educational articles:
Let Solas Web Design redesign your website and build a
lasting, meaningful relationship with your business. Contact us today!
Reach Us By Phone: (707) 981-7943 or by Email: info@solaswebdesign.net
At Solas Web Design, we are committed to assisting your company
in achieving a strong and effective Internet presence.
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