Doing research online before making decisions is now the norm: all your future clients eventually land on your website as part of their buying journey and what they see there conditions what they will do next!
Your service company website is the best place to showcase your services, displays customers elements of social proof like testimonials and provide contact information to potential buyers. It contributes to increase your visibility, build trust with customers and grow you business
But it can also play against your interests when the message delivered on the website is not fully aligned with the current goals & state of your business which evolve and change over time (and that is a good thing: new clients won, new projects delivered, new service launched, new market open…)
The critical moment to redesign your service company website is when this misalignment becomes too big and misleading for your potential buyers.
To help you timing your redesign, here are 10 signs or change that often require a redesign:
1. Outdated look
Web design is a rapidly evolving industry. You don’t need to be spot on on the last trends (although it can be an interesting strategy) , but an outdated design won’t help to establish your business's credibility and professionalism (and dynamism). I even had clients sharing with me that they were not using their website because they were too ashamed to share it (ndr they were really in need of a redesign which we did)
Read this post to learn how to make your website impossible to ignore
2. Not responsive
Here is a fact from gs.statcounter.com: As of November 2022, 60% of all web traffic came through mobile phones. That includes your visitors…
3. Rebranding
Rebranding is a major change in the message you want to pass to your potential clients and your website has to be update to match your new visual identity
You can check this post to learn how to pick the right visuals for your website
4. Change of business focus
An other case that creates misalignment if you don’t update your website: you are likely missing out opportunities by delivering the wrong messages to your ideal clients
5. Low traffic / Not measured traffic
If your website traffic is non-existent, something is seriously off. Maybe the content isn’t optimized. Maybe you’re doing something to tick Google off — like failing to address broken features and duplicate content or even not authorizing the indexing of some pagesAny way you cut it, if your only site visitor is you, something needs to change.
6. Not SEO optimized
This is likely connected with 4. If your website is not optimized for search engines, it may be difficult for potential customers to find you in search results. A redesign can help to improve your website's SEO and increase its visibility in search results.
7. Low conversion
Are people visiting your website and then leaving without taking action? Do you have a high bounce rate? Are people spending very little time on your pages?This means you’re making it easy for people to find you, but you’re ultimately not delivering to them what they’re looking for. This could be a sign that your website needs a little (or a lot of) attention
8. Not secure
An SSL certificate is essential for securing sensitive information such as login credentials and credit card information, and it can help to build trust with potential customers. And if you don't have one, your user browser will show him a security warning when he lands on your page - definitely not the kind of message you want to pass
9. Slow to load
Slow loading is the enemy - Best-in-class webpages should become interactive within 5.3 seconds. Any slower and visitors will abandon your site, reducing conversions and sales.
10. Outdated technology
One good reason to redesign a website can be the migration to a technology that matches better your needs. A frequent case that I meet is clients who want to replace their Wordpress website with a other technical solution easier to maintain. And Webflow is the perfect candidate for that
Bonus
Here is how the Apple's website looked back in 1997
And that is how it looks today in 2023:
Still not sure about a redesign? Hubspot offers a free Website Grader that you can use to audit your website and see where it stands in terms of performance,SEO, Mobile and Security.
I understand this may feel overwhelming and you don't have to do all this by your own. In fact, getting some professional help will save you a lot of troubles, as well as time and money
Here are some advice about how to look for professional help for the web design of your small service company website
If that is still not enough, you can drop me a message with your website link for an opinion
