So your site isn’t working the way you want it to. Maybe it’s sluggish, or you’re not seeing the conversions you want, or customers are complaining. Before you drop a huge chunk of your budget on a complete rebuild, consider that there might be a simpler (and more affordable) solution to your website woes.
We see a lot of Drupal 7 and WordPress websites here at Kanopi Studios, and we often discover that it’s more cost-effective for our clients to simply update their sites rather than rebuilding them. Making targeted updates can allow you to focus on addressing a few key issues, while still leveraging the investment of time, energy and funds that went into your site’s foundation.
In this series, we’ll look at three key topics to consider:
1. How do you know when it’s time for a change?
2. Is your website optimally organized and designed to be user-friendly?
3. How strong is your technical foundation?
How do I know it’s time for a change?
Do any of these problems sound familiar?
- Low conversion rates
- Site pages take more than 3 seconds to load
- Site doesn’t work well on mobile or other devices
- Updating content is a difficult and frustrating process
- Users struggle to find what they need on the site or have shared negative feedback
- Site crashes when updating
- Too many bugs
- Building new features is difficult or may not even be possible
- Site is not loading on https and triggers security warnings
If your answer to any of these is yes, it’s time to take action.
But first … is it really that important for me to address these issues?
Yes! A website that isn’t working optimally can dramatically affect your bottom line. An out-of-date or poorly designed website can:
- Damage your credibility. If your website loads slowly, is crowded with clutter or is just plain not working, you are sending the message that your company is unprofessional.
- Make you appear out of touch. A dated website tells your customers you are behind the technological times, or worse – you don’t care enough to stay up-to-date.
- Cost you customers. Every customer who leaves your site in frustration due to broken links, complex forms, slow pages or confusing navigation is a customer you won’t get back. If your competitors offer similar services and have a stronger website experience, your loss will be their gain.
Decision time. If you want to avoid the damage that a dated website can cause, you’ll need to either rebuild your site or update it. If you’re ready to take action, we can help you find the best and most cost-effective approach.
There are two primary things to consider when maximizing your site’s ROI: your user’s needs and the technology that drives your site. If you can identify and fix problems in both of these categories, you can most likely avoid a costly rebuild.
Next, we’ll dive a bit deeper into tips to help you level up your user experience and update your website technology without starting over from scratch. Consider it the non-surgical, diagnostic approach to improving your website experience right where it needs it the most.
