Why should I Invest in a New Website Design?
By Raeleen
| 27 October 2021
Many business owners are aware that to be able to survive and thrive nowadays, they need to put a lot of effort into growing their digital presence. However, some equate having a digital presence with using various social media platforms and they skip creating a website for their business or forego website redesign thinking they are not worthwhile investments.
It is easy to be swayed into this kind of thinking. After all, creating social media accounts is practically free. Business owners may have to spend on advertising and hiring social media managers as their business grows. But relatively speaking, it is less expensive to start.
Creating a new website for your business on the other hand may require relatively more effort and resources upfront. That may dissuade new business owners from investing in a new website.
Likewise, some business owners might think that their old website created years ago is enough and a website redesign is just an added cost.
But are social media platforms enough to build and expand digital presence? They do play a very important role, but they are not enough to strengthen your digital presence.
A company or business website is still the centrepiece of a digital presence. It is important to invest in a business website that is updated with the current web design trends and follows best practices to stand out among its competitors.
Advantages of Having a Website for Business
Here are some of the benefits of having a website for your business.
Improve Business Credibility
Potential customers usually research the company and products before making a purchasing decision. If they cannot find the company website, they will likely doubt the legitimacy of the business and go purchase the product or service from a more credible company.
That said, simply creating a website for your business does not automatically establish your credibility online. Your website must be able to show what your business stands for, what your products or services are, your physical address and how your customers can reach you to convince your visitors that you are not some fly-by-night company.
You can further improve your credibility by including testimonials from satisfied clients, highlighting your professional affiliations and memberships, and press mentions. Also, publishing your privacy policy and terms of use to show transparency further increases your business’ credibility.
Secure your Brand Online
Having a business website is essential to protecting your brand online. If you don’t get a domain name that is closest to your business name ASAP, someone else will. With lots of people worldwide trying to create their own companies and establishing their presence online, it is not impossible that they may have similar sounding names and may even offer the same products and services as you are.
It will be hard to expand your digital presence if someone else is already using your name on the web. You shouldn’t think twice about getting a domain for your website once you’ve figured out your business name or at least what the nature of your business will be.
The same thing goes with your other channels such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Showcase your Work/Products
Your website is the best place to showcase your work or products. You can give out more details on your website unlike in social media where there is a limit to the number of characters you can post.
Increase your Local Exposure
You can increase your local exposure by adding your business profile on Google My Business listing and getting verified by Google. You can add your contact information including your website URL in your listing.
When customers search for products and services that you are offering through Google Maps they will be able to find you more easily and can proceed to engage with you through your website listed on Google My Business.
Expand your Reach
When you have a website that is optimised for search engines, you can reach potential customers both within and outside of your geographical area.
Save you Time and Effort
Some people may want to ask questions about your products or services to help them make a decision. By providing a Frequently Asked Questions page on your website, you can give the most relevant information needed by your potential customers without having to do a one-on-one conversation with every visitor on your site. You’ll only need to entertain those who have more complex questions and issues that are not covered in your FAQ.
Boost your Reputation as an Authority
Your website can serve as an avenue to boost your reputation as an authority. You can add a blog or a podcast to your website and provide helpful information that is related to your industry.
For example, if you are offering window installation service, you can provide valuable information about windows to your target customers through your website’s blog. You can discuss the best materials for windows, which window styles go with architectural styles, tips and tricks in cleaning and maintaining windows, and so on. This will help establish your company as an authority in windows installation.
Generate Sales Through your Website
You can turn your website into an eCommerce site to allow your customers to buy through your site.
Keep Track of your Business in Real-time
You can track the number of visitors to your site, where they come from, what devices they use, which pages and what types of content get the most visits, what products are performing well, the average time people spend on your site, and more.
Gain Valuable Insights from Customers
This is closely related to the point above. You can gain valuable insights from the data collected by your website and you can adjust your strategies accordingly.
For example, if you notice that you have a high bounce rate (people landing on your page but leaving immediately without exploring other pages), you can try to find out what’s causing this and try to fix the issue. Is it because of the slow loading time? Are pop-ups and ads annoying your customers? Is your call to action prominently displayed?
Benefit from Combined Marketing Strategies
One of the biggest benefits of having a website is that you can use it as a hub for all your marketing activities.
Your website provides space for content marketing. You can add relevant blogs and videos to your website to attract more visitors to the site. Make them shareable via social media to potentially reach more people. Or you can create ebooks and other downloadable content that can be accessed through your website.
You can also launch email marketing, social media, and lead generation campaigns to push engagement to your business website.
Keep your business open 24/7
Prospective customers can visit your website and transact with you any time of the day. You can automate many processes on your website so that you can continue earning and promoting your business while you sleep.
Have an all-in-one business hub
We’ve already mentioned that your business website can be turned into an eCommerce site to allow online transactions and that you can use your website as a hub for all your marketing activities.
Aside from those, you can also organise customer information through customer relationship management software, provide customer support channels via chat, emails, and built-in forms, offer subscriptions, sell memberships, and manage your inventory. These and a whole lot more can be done from your website through integration with other software or plugins.
Your new website doesn’t have to have all of the mentioned features. However, as your business grows, you can consider adding more functionalities that could help you run your business more efficiently.
Why Redesign your Website
Maybe you already have an existing website that was created years ago and was doing well at one point. However, you may have noticed that your website is not doing as well anymore. This is not uncommon as technologies and trends are changing and they might affect your business in one way or another. It might be time for a website redesign.
Here are some of the common reasons why your website needs to be redesigned.
You Want to Rebrand.
Maybe your company is not attracting the right customers anymore and you’ve determined that the best course of action is to rebrand. Or maybe your company merged with another. Or your company has widened its scope or changed its direction.
Whatever the reason for the rebrand, for it to be successful, you must ensure that all your online presence will be consistent with the new brand. This may mean that you have to redesign your website so that it will reflect your new brand.
You want to Drive more Traffic to your Website.
If your website doesn’t get enough visitors, it is possible that your website was designed poorly or is already out of date.
A website redesign can improve your website’s visual appeal, make navigation easier, and improve its overall structure. All of these can help your website be more search engine friendly and drive more traffic to your site.
Your Website has yet to Adapt to Current Technology.
If it’s been years since your website was created, it is most likely that it doesn’t follow the current best practices for web design.
If such is the case, your users will encounter issues when visiting your website. It may take too long to load especially on mobile devices, or it does not look good on some devices and may be hard to use. The result: they will click away from your site in search of better options and you will lose potential customers.
Your Website doesn’t Provide the Best User Experience.
You want your customers to have a seamless experience when visiting your website. When your customers experience snags on your website such as complicated checkout processes, errors in accessing a page, hard to find products or information, they will get discouraged and might not want to visit or transact with you again.
Redesigning your website can help improve the user experience of your customers. When customers are happy, they will keep returning to your website.
Likewise, you may want to improve the user experience on the backend of your website so that you and your colleagues can run your business more efficiently.
You Want to Improve your Conversion Rate
Maybe your website does get a lot of traffic but your problem is how to get more people to buy your products or services.
When you have made all the tweaks for your website and campaigns that you know of and you’re still not getting the results you want, maybe a new website design is in order.
This may involve improving your website’s navigation, streamlining processes, making your calls to action clear and prominent, enhancing your website’s visual appeal, optimising for mobile, and more. These can help improve the user experience which in turn can help increase the conversion rate of your website.
Case study: Cornerstone Medical Recruitment
Cornerstone Medical Recruitment had a website that was no longer working for them and wanted it to be redesigned for the following reasons.
The company and website needed a rebrand
The company needed to present a much more modern image to attract more candidates from across Australia for their clients. They also wanted to leverage themselves as “medical matchmakers” for the employers and candidates and not just any medical recruitment agency.
Mettro was able to build a modern-looking website that speaks to its target audience. We replaced the outdated design on the old website with emotive photography (which the client commissioned) that shows the kind of life the candidates have when they find their ideal job with the company’s help.
They wanted an improved user experience
They were not able to update their website content on their own and relied on their previous developer. They had to wait for weeks for their developer to get the job done which was not ideal considering they needed to constantly update the job listings on the site.
Mettro built their website on WordPress which allowed changes to be made easily across the entire website.
They wanted to improve their conversion rate
They needed to recruit more candidates for their clients.
Mettro built simpler navigation so that both job seekers and employers could easily find what they are looking for. We placed all calls to action clearly front and centre with easy to fill in forms to ensure high levels of conversion.
To sum it up
A website redesign is an investment: it takes time, effort, and money but it is all worthwhile. A properly executed web redesign can help you improve your rankings, increase your conversions, meet the needs of you and your customers, and help you achieve your business goals.
Do you think it may be time for a new website design? Contact us or book a one-on-one to discuss your project!