Almost every company goes through several iterations of website redesigns every few years, in order to refresh the look of their site, change its architecture, or ramp it up to stay current with technology. If done right, a website would not require a total overhaul, just refreshing the look/feel and moving content around to make it more user-friendly.

The web industry recommends that a website has a partial or major update every 5 years or so; as new technologies emerge. Some things to consider are new ways of optimizing websites for SEO, speed time, and new media technologies.

Below are a few signs that may indicate that your website needs a redesign:

Not Mobile Friendly

If your website is not responsive, which means it is not optimized for mobile devices, it may potentially need a major redesign. Currently, most designers will do what is called "mobile first" which is starting with design for mobile design first, then adjust the styles in order for the site to work well in other conventional devices such as desktop. Statistics have shown that at least half of users visiting your site are doing so through mobile devices; so this is a great incentive for a redesign.

Site not converting

If your site is not converting users into customers, that's a common concern that may require tweaking your site to improve this. But also, finding the reason why the site isn't converting. Can it be SEO? Or that your site is not user-friendly? Also, is your site providing value to your visitors?

Five years since last redesign

Your site may have been redesigned a while ago and is converting well and ranking high with SEO. But since its last redesign, many different technologies launched, and others became outdated. For example, Adobe announced in 2017 that it would no longer support Flash. It stopped working by the end of 2020. I

Site ranking low in Search Engines

If your site is not ranking high enough in search engines such as Google, perhaps it's time to rethink all aspects of your website. Specifically the content, its structure and fine tune it to improve search engine optimization (SEO). Also, if your site is not performing well in terms of speed and loading time, that's another incentive to start a redesign of your site.

High loading time

If your site has a high loading time, which means it takes more than 3 seconds to load the homepage, visitors will look elsewhere. The heavy use of images, scripts and stylesheets can considerably impact performance, especially over time. By revisiting images, scripts used on the site, and the code, site performance can be improved.

Change of audience/branding

If you are changing your audience, niche, or branding it's definitely time to revise the site. Or even, start a new website from scratch. Your website should reflect the audience you want to reach, and your branding. Not considering this could cause confusion with the visitors that find your website.

Updating content is difficult

If you rely on a developer to make the smallest change in content, takes a lot of turnaround time, it might be good to redesign your site. Also, consider using a content management system to quickly update your site. Examples of content management systems are Wordpress, Masa, and Drupal. This allows everyone to easily update content, add new pages, or delete those which are no longer needed.