Do You Need a New Website? 8 Questions to Ask

8 Reasons Why You May Need a New Website

With last year in the rearview mirror (good riddance), you may be asking, "Do I need a new website?" Whether your business has a long corporate history or is a startup, here's what you need to know to determine whether now is the time to launch a brand-new site.

1. Are you rebranding? You want to expand your offerings; you're updating your messaging; you've purchased a new company or been acquired; you're shifting your focus. Whatever your reason for rebranding, it's an ideal time to highlight your new corporate identity with a fresh website. This is the time to launch a site showcasing your current brand colors, logo, name and mission. What better way to reveal the new you in a new year?

2. Have you optimized your site for search engines recently? Google's algorithms change a lot, quickly. If you optimized your site for search engines back in 2018, you likely employed some techniques that are at best outdated and at worst could actually hurt your rankings. Google's technology is growing increasingly sophisticated, which is good news for searchers, and for your company, but you have to know how to harness your site's power. You should have a site optimized for local searches, no-click searches and for searches on mobile phones. (As many as 46% of searches on Google are local, as many as 65% are no-click and as many as 55% are on mobile phones.) Not only does your site need unique, thorough, authoritative content but it's got to be easy to navigate, load quickly and more.

3. Does your site use outdated technology? What platform hosts it? Not only could Google penalize a slow-loading site, but long wait times also can cause a frustrating experience for users. 93% of users leave if a site doesn't load properly. This is one reason Google's Core Web Vitals rank pages with better user experiences higher.

4. Is your site optimized for lead generation? Calls to action and fillable forms are just the beginning. Have you properly employed internal linking to keep visitors on your site longer? Have you used smart forms that recognize returning visitors? Do you promote your gated premium content on relevant pages? You need a strategy to not only attract visitors but also to convert them into paying customers and keep them returning to your site again and again for resources, tips and news.

5. Is your web content fresh? While every site can benefit from a proper content audit, sometimes it can be ideal to start anew if you have many new products or services, if you've updated many of your offerings, or if industry regulations or conditions have changed and you need to show you are on top of your game. You should also be making sure both internal and external links are working correctly and that you aren't using any outdated facts or data, which can harm your site's credibility and positioning as a technology leader.

6. Does your site's design date it? Image and font trends come and go – just ask Comic Sans. If you don't want your company to look like it's stuck in the 2000s, opt for a site with a clean, modern design and easy-to-navigate user interface. It's not just about staying trendy – in one study, 94% of users who said they didn't trust a site based their reaction on the site's design.

7. Is your site integrated with your CRM? A platform like our partner HubSpot allows you to both host your website and your customer database to see how visitors use your site and how they progress in their journey from visitor to buyer. It enables you to analyze key metrics, nurture visitors with email workflows, and offer your audience a more personalized experience.

8. How are your web analytics? If your current site has a high bounce rate or low conversion rate, it might be time to revise your strategy. You also might want to look at your site's demographics, how many of your visitors return to your site repeatedly and how long they stay. These metrics can help you see whether you need a refresh and which segments of your audience might be struggling to find information, products and services they need.