Your web site exists in an crowded digital world, and competition is fierce.  It’s your calling card, your store front, a key component in your marketing plan. Things move pretty quickly in the digital world, and it’s important to periodically assess the digital environment and make those changes to your web site that can help you stay competitive.

1) Make Your Site Responsive

In just a few short years, we increasingly access the internet with mobile devices, like smart phones and tablets. Your web site needs to look good and work well on those devices, or you’ll lose traffic – and potential customers.  A good web designer will make sure that your web site functions well across the many platforms out there.

2) Integrate Social Media

Did you know that Google includes social media in their algorithms? Social media is an increasingly important marketing tool. Are you on social media? If not, you need to think about linking your accounts with your site. Recent studies show that many businesses get as many as 25% of new clients from social media.  A web site redesign should integrate your brand elements across all your social media accounts.  This means more brand recognition, which means better search results.

3) Your Customers and/or Market Has Changed

If you’re a savvy business owner, you’re in touch with the changing needs of your customers and your market niche. Is your web site keeping up with those changes? Is your language and content current, or are you using the same copy you’ve been using for years? Are you keeping up with industry trends for web sites in your market?

4) Old, Slow, Outdated

For better or worse, visitors have almost no patience any more for slow loading web sites.  Longer than a second or two, and they are gone!   The same goes for a site that uses old styles of design, colors, and fonts – they mark your site as outdated.  Why do business with someone who doesn’t keep their web site looking current?

5)  SEO Optimization

If you didn’t design your original site with SEO in mind, then you might want to think about redesigning your site around SEO best practices and principles.  It’s worth the effort, since organic search still delivers significant results for web site owners!

Any one of these can be a good reason for redesigning your web site. Two or more of these are sending a strong signal that your web site needs a redesign!