Every website needs a facelift from time to time; subtle additions to the site or its features should be done on a regular basis. But at some point your website will need more drastic changes — a redesign or revamp.

Maybe you sense you’ve squeezed as many miles out of your current site as you can, and it’s time to trade it in, or upgrade it to a better model. But how do you know for sure that time has come?

In my experience as a web developer, I’ve found there are five really good reasons you should consider a complete redesign or revamp.

1) Content Is Poorly Organized/Difficult to Reach

Some of our clients fell into this trap; they needed to get on the web as quickly and inexpensively as possible. They sacrificed quality for speed and cost. Perhaps you did too. Now, years have gone by, and your site is suffering. You have outdated information…certain things don’t work the way you’d like them to…and others don’t work at all!

You may have good information on your cheap and easy website, but it’s a disorganized mess. Or the functions you rely on, such as contact forms, are broken.

This is a very common, but correctable problem. Here at Farris Marketing, we’re experts at taking something old and making it new again. We can rebuild your website by reorganizing its sitemap and content to best fit the ways in which your visitors look for information — while ensuring your customers can quickly contact you — without any hiccups in the process.

2) A Dated Look

When compared to your competitors, does your website design look professional? Or is it old, with its age beginning to show? Would you trust clicking links or finding information on it? Did you recently rebrand your company with a new name, logo, colors or philosophy that your website no longer mirrors?

If you answer honestly to the above and have that feeling in the pit of your stomach, then it’s time to bring your website into the new age. New technology allows for a fair blend of functionality without sacrificing design and curb appeal. Even if your website is only a few years old, it may be “too old” by web standards. (Just think of dog years!) It might be time to overhaul that look and have a website built that better represents your business, while looking high-tech and up-to-date with today’s top dogs.

3) Moves Too Slow

Is your site is underperforming? Are certain pages (or the entire website) taking too long to load? This is not good. When your site takes too long to pop up, you lose potential customers. You also lose SEO (Search Engine Optimization), as Google and Bing rank fast-loading websites ahead of underperforming ones.

At Farris, we build web-compliant sites that perform quickly, and place them with reliably fast web hosts. At the blink of an eye, your visitors see your important information. And with a redesign, that information is now front-and-center in an instant.

4) Search Rankings Are Poor

Speaking of SEO, how does your site show up in a search? Are you losing website traffic because of missing keywords on your site? Are you capable of updating those words and descriptions Google uses on your own? Do you submit sitemaps to the major search engines to make them aware of new content? Do you utilize analytics programs to know which pages on your site generate the most clicks?

Our web design experts build sites that talk to search engines and help them index your information in ways that help more potential customers find you — instead of “the other guy.”

And finally…

5) Not Mobile-Friendly

Does your website look good on a mobile phone? Is the content easy to access with big fingers? Can it be read without zooming in? Does your existing website use old technology, such as Flash video or animations, which cannot be seen by mobile website visitors?

If so, it’s time for a redesign.

As many as 70% of visitors may be coming to your site from an iPhone, Android or other smartphone. If your website doesn’t work properly for these users, you risk losing their business. Google thinks so too; they recently began ranking mobile-friendly websites ahead of others when users search from their cellphones.

That’s why all of Farris Marketing’s new projects are built with mobile phones in mind. Whether it’s a responsive web design that works gracefully from desktop to tablet to phone, or a special mobile-only application — our web gurus have you covered, so you won’t miss out on over half of those users accessing your site from a small screen.