Each week I speak with companies who need a new website and complain to me about their current website. I’m a frank person and once someone knows this, they frequently just start saying the first thing that comes to their head. Some of the comments are so funny and painfully accurate, they have me laughing out loud and whipping the tears off my face. While that is good for me, it is not for the company who owns the website.
The below list of top reasons for a website redesign is a humorous take on my recent conversations with website owners. I wish I could say these were unrealistic and made up in my head, but they’re not. They’re based on real-world websites.
Top Ten Signs Your Website Needs a Redesign
- Your website looks like it was design in 1995 and it was.
- Your website needs some updates, but the developer (aka your nephew) is now in college and is unavailable.
- Your animated gif is getting tired. He looked so hip back in the day, but dancing puppies just don’t articulate your marketing message like they should.
- If a battle were to break out, your company’s PowerPoint presentations would kick the crap out of your website’s content. Which it should, since the PowerPoint was updated last month and the website hasn’t been updated in years.
- Your website feels like a black hole. You’re not exactly sure how many people come to your website, what they do once there, and when they leave.
- Your website feel tiny compared to that of your competition. It looked great back in 2000 when the standard resolution size was 800×600. Today, well, not so much.
- You navigation is so poor, you and your website visitors have difficulty finding relevant content.
- You have duplicate content and you didn’t even know you had. But Google did and you’ve been hit by Google’s Panda update because of it.
- Your website is so slow you can grab a cup of coffee while navigating between pages.
- You greet visitors with a talking image of yourself. That may have been ultra cool years ago, but now it is just really annoying. And when the world talks about social, they do not mean talking avatars.
Again, real-world websites and comments from website owners. But there is hope. You are no longer forced to rely on your tech savvy nephew or an outdated WYSWYG software package with limited capabilities. You can use modern tools like WordPress and Google Analytics to create a fresh new website presence.
And if you really need help, you can contact a website designer like myself. I’d suggest you locate a WordPress website designer who is spunky like me, so we can stop you from using animated gif files, talking avatars, or anything else that would harm your online image and the world’s perception of your company and offering.
Feel free to add a comment below to help round out my top ten list. I’m sure there are plenty more website faux pas that can be added and I’ve love to hear from you.
Hello! I stumbled upon your site from StudioPress’s Theme Showcase as I was looking for examples of bloggers with the Genesis theme framework. Anyways, I’m not sure if you meant this post to be funny but I certainly found it so! I remember the animated gifs that were crowded almost on every personal website back in the late 90’s and such. I’m trying to imagine if that were to happen today and it’s just cracking me up!
Simon my top ten was based on actual prospects’ websites. The animated gif was on a website I reviewed in June. And not only was the gif animated, he was on the page more than once. Painful!
That’s a tough one. I agree with every single point in your post and yet, I struggle (often) with how to diplomatically communicate these things to the potential client. The last thing you want to do is offend someone who things their site is great, especially if they did it themselves, or their daughter/son, neighbor, etc. I agree with Simon’s comment: Not sure if this was meant to be funny, but I did giggle. More than once. Thanks for the great post!
Well said. We’ve found that often clients think their website is a headache, when really, it’s much more on the stroke scale. It’s difficult to communicate — and sometimes may end a relationship. However, if we’re looking to be true partners with our clients and help them to grow their businesses, it simply has to be said.