First impression does matter, especially when prospective customers are visiting your website. Your potential audience will start making assumptions about your business at the first glance of your website. Usually they do not spend more than a few seconds, before they decide if they should stay or leave the site. All the content sould be relevant and to-the-point. Nothing should steal their attention and distract them. Poor navigation or an unattractive user interface, make visitors to leave your website, as much as imcompayibilty with some mobile or tablet devices do. So, if any of these cases apply to your website, and it cannot convert visitors to customers, it may be a good time to consider a website redesign.The following points can help you to decide what should be improved.Making Your Website Your PriorityEvidently, all websites need constant improvement. Just browse through your competitors' sites for a few minutes and find out how fast things are changing. Some businesses neglect their website, just dealing with the day-to-day business activities. Nowadays, it is not enough just to have some random information and few contact phone numbers. These days, to stay ahead of your competition you need to pull your customers in with an interesting website design and relevant content. This will not only attract the first-timers, but also make them customers.Reasons for Website RedesignHere is a simple checklist to help you evaluate and decide if it is time for a website redesign.Certainly you know what type of visitors your website has and what they are looking for in your site. So the question is how fast they can find what they want, and how it can affect your business?Are your current business goals and strategies consistent with your website?Does your offline and online marketing complement each other?Have you eliminated all broken links and/or typos from your website?Is your website easy to read - legible font sizes, colors and style?Is your website information and contact information up to date?Is your website's appearance clean and simple (i.e. not jumbled up with flashing images/graphics or overwhelming content)?Does your website display properly in all the web browsers, specially the new ones (e.g. Apple's Safari, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome)?Does your website have a low visitor bounce rate (i.e. visitors click to your website and do not leave immediately from the first landing page)?Does your website rank well on Google and other search engines?Is your website updated regularly with blogs, news releases, newsletters, video demos/webinars and white papers?Is your website mobile friendly (e.g. accessible to iphone, Android, and blackberry users)?Is your website easy to navigate (i.e.it's easy to get from one page to another with top and sidebar navigation)?Does your website generate PPC leads with capturing mechanism to collect emails, like a form?If you answered NO to most of the questions, then it is highly recommended that you consider redesigning your website.Act Quickly & CautiouslyOnce you are aware that your website requires a redesign, you need to do your homework. There are many web designing companies offering expert solutions, but not all website architects and designers are worth their price.Look for those that use latest market trends, have a portfolio of website redesign projects that they are willing to share with you and take the time to understand your needs before making blanket recommendations about what your website should look like.Little Updates Can Make An ImpactMake sure to ask for the simple solutions that can make a big impact at a fraction of the cost; like adding conversion forms, contact forms and other interactive elements that will allow you to collect leads.Make Your Redesign a PriorityThese little updates will save time and get you moving forward until you are ready for a complete redesign. These subtle changes should not take the place of a much needed website redesign, but will get you headed in the right direction until you have allocated the funds needed for a complete overhaul of your online presence.
