In 2021 businesses are more focused on the digital interaction and digital communication. The SMBs, large businesses, multinational enterprises and organizations, everyone is utilizing their websites to provide certain information about their business. Some businesses are also generating online leads from their websites and some businesses are entirely dependent on their website and online activities such as e-Commerce. However, it really doesn’t matter which market or industry sector you operate in or what magnitude of operation do you have, a website is a key part of modern day marketing strategy. It has to be perfect! The studies have shown us that a business website have an extraordinary impact on visitor’s mind and brand perception. These days the internet and digital world is dominating every aspect of our lives. In UAE people tend to spend hours on social media, internet surfing and digital platform on daily bases. This raise the importance of a website even further.
A business website is the first impression for a large chunk of targeted audience. A user takes merely a fraction of a second to build an impression of the brand by just viewing the web design. This impression biased their entire interaction and it is very hard to change it. As in the website there is no staff or sales person who can talk the visitor into making decision so the content will be your ultimate tool. Together the content and web design will determine the success or failure of a business in online. The online brand image and reputation have huge impact on the business, if a business had a very bad online reputation, most of the prospects will avoid visiting them and vice versa. There are so many different reasons to revamp your web design but here are five most critical signs that you should consider seriously. If any on these signs is there in your website then the web design revamp is absolutely necessary for your business website.
Reason No. 1: The Web Design Doesn’t Properly Reflect Your Brand Identity
A business’s brand identity is not a simple thing, it is a very complex phenomenon. The brand identity keeps evolving, sometimes it is getting minor or unnoticeable changes sometimes a complete revamp, whatever the case is it keep evolving all the time. The website is an online reflection of your brand identity, it should completely reflect the actual brand image. Sometimes the websites are overlooked, and sometimes even the websites doesn’t even reflect the brand remotely. Here are some key points or level where a web design should completely synchronize with the actual brand identity:
Color Scheme
It a very common sight for us witnessing websites who are bearing a completely different color logo and the entire web design is in a different color scheme. That is not advisable. A website theme and the entire web design should completely harmonized with the brand logo and its colors. Usually businesses have two to four different colors in their logo, and mostly only one or two dominates the logo. The website theme and entire web design should also portray those colors. The colors are very important our brain reacts differently to colors, shapes and words, each have its own importance, however the colors are what will draw a picture in the mind of the users. It is a general trend that all major big brands mostly we are using are following a standard color scheme which is to use the logo color in their overall branding. This is what sets a standard and knowingly or unknowingly your website visitors seeks the same in your web design and if they failed to find it, they will going to get a negative impression of the brand.
Design and Graphics
The design is a pretty vague term. It is commonly interchangeable with the entire web design. However, since the brand logo dictates the theme and color scheme the rest of the web design and the graphics should also follow the same. For example if a business have a logo which is having a triangle or circle or any geometric shape, the web design should use those shapes. Although this may not sound important but it is. Human brain reacts very differently to the geometric designs, patterns and shapes than to actual scenes and/or photos. Such similarities between logo and web design makes it more memorable. If your business website lack this you should consider a revamp of your web design.
User Interface
The user interface is what controls the entire user interaction of your customers with the business through the website and throughout the entire customer journey. The user interface should clearly follow the brand identity. Each and every element such as buttons, clicks, mouse hoovers, etc. should clearly reflect the brand identity and doesn’t look different than the rest of the web design. Collectively the web design elements, style and the design interaction forms a user interface. The user interface enables the users to easily navigate through the website information and also take them through the customer journey and allow them to perform different functions easily. If your user interface is not reflecting the brand identity you need to redesign your business website.
Reason No. 2: The Content is Outdated or Failed to Communicate the Right Value Proposition
As the web design only requires a fraction of a second to imprint an impression on visitor’s mind, in order to keep that impression long lasting, the content plays a vital role. A web design without an excellent content is like a Lamborghini without an engine. No matter how cool it looks but it can’t serve the very basic purpose of its existence. Similarly the content is also considered to be the backbone of a web design. The website success relies on a perfect blend of excellent content and captivating web design. A business website acts as a reception or store front in the digital world except there is no sales person or employees to convince your visitors to make a decision and convert. It is the website content that do this work. It has to be up-to-date, correct and simple-to-understand. If your website content have any of the following issue you should seriously consider a web design revamp:
Outdated Content
Any professional marketer knows it very well how important the content is and how important it is to have an up-to-date content and information on your website. People will look up for a business website to get the latest information about the business and its products and services. If that information is outdated, they will not going to convert or even if they convert they will going to have a bad customer experience. Visitors and prospects can easily get the impression that this business is still living in the past and following old trends and business practices. This will result in very bad reputation which not only affect business’s brand identity but it also repels the customers and prospects.
Your Products/Services Evolved
Businesses keep improving their products and services to ensure the highest customer satisfaction. In some cases similar products and services got upgraded or sometimes businesses completely discard an older product or service and replace it with a newer and better one. That has to be updated on the website too. Customers and prospects who are visiting your website must be informed with the new changes that you have made to please them. If your website still have the older products and services you need a revamp to make sure all the information and designs are updated as per the latest products and services.
Lack of Multimedia Content
Today’s modern era is the age of multimedia content. The consumption of the multimedia content is at its peak. Thanks to the easy access to the high speed internet and widespread smartphones. Everyone in Dubai or any other part of UAE have access to the high-speed internet and a smartphone or laptop/desktop. The social media have also changed the marketing trend. People are more comfortable in watching a video or animation rather than reading a paragraph or two. In fact the multimedia content is a crucial part of any modern day marketing or branding strategy. If your web design is not offering enough multimedia content, you need a new web design for your business website.
Reason No. 3:Your Website’s Search Performance is Declining
The website’s sole purpose is to attract visitors, more visitors means more prospects and more prospects means more online leads and conversions which directly impact your business’s profitability and revenue. There are different analytical tools that are used by marketing experts and webmasters to measure the search performance of the website. These tools provide a deeper insight of the website’s search performance. The search engine optimization or SEO plays a vital role in any business website’s success. Usually for any healthy brand around 70% of its website traffic would be organic, means absolutely free. This organic website traffic is the visitors coming to the website through a search engine or a free source. Mainly it is the search engines. The search engines like Google is dominating the search market with whooping 92% of the market share. It is extremely important that your website meets the basic criteria of the search engine and perform well in the search engine. Here are some strong indicators which will indicate if a website needs a complete revamp of its web design:
Bounce Rate is Increasing
The bounce rate is measured as a number of people who have entered a website from one page and then left it without clicking any other page. The bounce rate is a very important indicator of a website’s health. If your bounce rate is increasing that mean your web design and content is failing to meet the needs of your visitors. Most of the time it is web design, in some particular cases it could be the content. Either businesses put all the relevant content in a single page and completely eliminate the need to going to any other page which is very rare, mostly businesses failed to provide relevant information hence the visitors decide not to waste any more time on the website. If that is the case you need a new web design and a content revamp for your business website.
Website Traffic is Decreasing
Sudden decline in website traffic is the nightmare of any marketer. That could be due to a huge change on the website or any serious violation of the search engine rules, mainly it is due to copying content from other websites. However businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE are also reporting us gradual decrease in their website traffic. There could be several reasons for that, but if you haven’t made any change in the website or anything and start witnessing gradual decline in organic traffic that means that your website has become outdated. It happens all the time, these search engines like Google keep updating their algorithms who are responsible of ranking a website. It could be due to an update from the search engine as well. It could be due to competition as well, maybe your competitor(s) have updated their websites and push you down in the search ranks. Whatever the case is, a new and better web design could be very helpful in solving the problem.
Lack Modern SEO Features
What are modern SEO features, well there is no definite answer to that, maybe when I am writing thing blog, I could compile a list and quit possible after a few months or a year when you are reading it that list is already old or outdated. The SEO techniques are also evolving as the other search engine algorithms are, but it is important to have all the modern SEO features on your website for example, if your website lacks the schema, structured data or rich snipped, you should move to a web design which support these features and a bunch of others which will make your business website more visible in the search engines. There are so many different things which are already introduced but not mainstream, maybe after some time these things become mainstream and your competitor adopt them before you, so it is important that your web design support and these modern SEO features with ability to scale in future.
Reason No. 4: The Customer Journey is Difficult
The customer journey in the online or digital world is also the same like in the store or branch or office. The online customer journey includes all the touch points through which a customer can interact and learn about the brand, its products and services and all other relevant information that can influence their decision to convert. That is why it is extremely important that a business websites offer a very fluent and easy customer journey via their business website. If a customer finds it hard to find the required information or the user interface is confusing and complex the customers will leave the website. The website navigation and user interface plays an important role in the customer journey. Sometime businesses have a very long and difficult purchase cycle, sometimes businesses have long content forms, and such things which makes it difficult for an ordinary customer to tread through the customer journey. Here are the most important aspects of customer journey:
Complex User Interface
The user interface by definition is the point where website visitors interact with the website, it is an umbrella term and it includes everything in it. However, mostly the user interface is considered to be the web design elements and their responses on user’s actions. It also includes the information structure or navigation and how the customer will move through the path of the customer journey from acquiring relevant information to converting into a genuine lead. If that entire process is complex and difficult the chances are only a few users will succeed reaching to the end. Mostly a user will quit half way through when they think it is taking too much time or it is complex and or confusing. If that is the case you need an immediate web design revamp for your business website.
Complex Navigation
The website navigation is usually a menu and set of links placed at strategic positions in a web design. As a single homepage can’t contain all of the information, usually the information is scattered across several pages, these pages are called internal pages. The website navigation is like a map to all those internal pages. There are certain things that can make a website navigation complex and hard to understand such as non-standard design/style, generic or confusing labels, too many links in a drop down menu, too many categories and sub-categories, unorganized or wrong order, the visual representation and readability or visibility, etc. Usually the customers and visitors expect a standard navigation style which is a horizontal menu at the top with drop downs and sub-categories, however these days business websites are using so many other styles and customized designs which could be completely new for a large bunch of audience which could make it difficult for them to navigate to their required information. Evaluate your website navigation, take customers feedback on it, and if it is not serving the purpose, you should revamp it, it is always better to provide a completely fresh web design instead of updating a few chunks here and there.
Long Purchase Cycle
The purchase cycle does not always refer to an online purchase but this term is used very vaguely. It usually refers to conversion. Some businesses do offer online purchases which require the customers to either register and have an online account or fill in long forms and then they are been asked to fill in bank details, and a bunch of other details. Similarly if you just want your customers to contact you from your website you must have been putting a contact form, or if you want them to subscribe there would be a subscription form, whatever the case is the customer takes everything differently, they might happily go through three or four steps to make an online purchase but they will not going to do the same for just contacting a company. Businesses often try to take as much information as they can which is not good, the user usually want to do it as quickly as possible, and too much form inputs will repel them.
Reason No. 5: Your Website Lacks Modern Features
There was a time when business in Dubai and all around the UAE were treating their business website as an online brochure or company profile. The normal market practice was to sell and purchase a website as a product. Businesses buy a website and left it for year, and that was also the same pretty much everywhere in the world. But things have changed drastically, now a days a website have become a full-on communication tool, rather being treated as a product now a days it is considered to be a service. Business in Dubai and all over UAE are either maintaining internal IT department to manage their websites or either outsourcing them. Whatever the case is a business website remains subjected to a continuous change and evolution. Here are some important traits of a modern day business website and if your web design doesn’t have them you need a completely new web design for your business website:
Poor Mobile Experience
In Dubai and all around the UAE the smartphone and mobile is used by almost 94% of the population. The mobile internet searches all over the world including UAE have already surpassed the conventional computers and laptops. Which makes the smartphone and mobile experience a most important part of online strategy. Businesses often overlooked their mobile experience, some even don’t offer a mobile friendly or responsive web design. Whenever a website is opened form a mobile device which is not optimized for the smartphones, the users immediately left. If you website is not mobile friendly or have a responsive web design or even if your responsive web design is not offering an optimum user journey, you should immediately revamp the web design of your business website.
Out-dated Functionalities
Each year comes with a slightly different trends, which compel the web designing agencies and businesses to innovate new features and techniques to deliver a captivating website which not only engage the customers but also provide them convenience and comfort in performing their tasks. This requires intensive features and technological integration with other online platforms. If a website lacks those modern features the users will get a very negative impression. For example social media integration and sharing functionality is very common, the WhatsApp or live chat functionality is also very popular, a modern day business website should offer such latest features else the customers will perceive the entire brand as outdated or old.
Slow Loading Time
The loading time of a website is the most crucial aspect of customer experience and it also have a huge contribution in search engine rankings. If a websites take more than three to five seconds to load the chances are almost 70% of the users will quit it and whoever will remember it will never click on it again from the search page. The slow loading web pages can have a very destructive consequences. If a website is loading slowly, a business should immediately check the two things, one is their website hosting and the other is the web design. Mostly it is the web design which is not properly programmed or optimized for better loading speed. Remember a slow loading website is even slower on smartphone and mobile devices. If that is the case, a business website needs a new web design.
Conclusion
The digital communication has become a necessity for modern day marketing. Business in Dubai and all over the UAE are well aware of the importance of their business website and the power of digital and online presence. The websites have evolved from an online brochure to a full-fledged communication channel. In fact a multitude of industries are heavily relying on their online strategies, the e-commerce business is totally dependent on the website. The websites and the relevant technology is rapidly evolving, there has been too many developments in the website designing and development technologies too. It is extremely important that a business website completely follow the modern trends and standards. The user experience and customer journey at the website can have a huge impact on the overall brand identity and brand reputation. The websites provide a business a chance to reach out to unexplored markets and to compete with large competitors in the online sphere.
Business in Dubai and all around the UAE often thinks that if they have a website that will be enough but that isn’t. The businesses must have to keep updating and upgrading their website, its web design, content, features and everything in between. The reason of this blog was to let our audience understand when they should seriously think about revamping the web design and its contents. RSI Concepts is a leading name in web design Dubai, if you want to learn more or want us to help you improving your website and online brand identity feel free to let us know. You can contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.
Check out this blog: How to Get a Cost-Effective Website for a Small Business
