Health Check Your Website: 6 Symptoms of an Aging Site

If you haven't updated your domain in a while, now is a good time to think about it. Most businesses update or reinvent their websites every two years or so, but how can you tell if it needs a little fine-tuning in between?

The world is changing at a very fast pace these days and the world of digital marketing agencies is changing even faster. New brands, new products, new ways of presenting content, and new designs are being introduced to the world at a speed that is making it hard to catch up. In such an eco-system you have no choice but to have a site that is extremely up to date with the changing times. Nobody wants an outdated website, and web design is so creative and easy these days that archaic pages are simply unacceptable. After all, web design should be about the user experience. That’s how you impress visitors and show off your brand personality.

Luckily, Creative agencies have been studying multiple brands across multiple platforms for years now. This has helped them to come up with a checklist to know when you should be updating your site so you can keep up with the times. Read ahead to familiarise yourself with this checklist.

Ditch Anything That Uses Flash 

If you have anything Flash on your website, get rid of it now. Flash is clunky and takes forever to load. It also has to be updated constantly. Search engines can’t index Flash, so it doesn’t benefit your site’s search engine optimization (SEO). In a world where every single brand is trying to rank on the first page of search engines with help from SEO agencies, you do not want to miss out on this extremely essential competitive edge due to outdated Flash. After all, you can only stay ahead in the game if you are a part of it, to begin with.

Flash intros were all the rage for a time because they incorporated motion design onto your website. But there are now much more modern ways to animate your pages. HTML5 and CSS3 let you create seamless, beautiful animations that won’t bog down load times. If you have any Flash elements whatsoever, it’s time to tweak your design.

Get Rid of Hideous Visitor Counters

Ask a website design company what is the one thing that your brand should ditch on its main website page and you are likely to hear the same answer- visitor counter. Visitor counters are definitely late 90s. Just picturing one is enough to make a web user cringe. Before analytics platforms, visitor counters served a purpose. But since today’s analytics can track traffic and user behavior so intelligently, counters have been rendered completely obsolete.

While not as big a deal on personal websites, visitor counters look unprofessional and sorely outdated on business pages. Ditch the counter and use an analytics platform to track your visitors. They’ll thank you for it.

Less Shimmer, More Matte

Web trends are shifting more toward matte and flat and away from the shiny, robust buttons that inundated the web in the past decade. Sites were designed to make buttons look enticing, with dropped shadows and shimmery surfaces adding “depth” to the layout. However, the focus is now on simplicity and clean lines.

Take a look at this example of flat design by Riki Tanone. There are no fancy bubble buttons here; it’s all about flat, matte, and easy to navigate. If you still want to add a little pizzazz, consider using a muted background texture instead. This adds visual interest to your site without muddying up the content. Clean, matte web design is a new trend that’s sure to become a timeless classic. It is time for your brand to adopt website redesign services and bring a clean, matte look on your site. When users are getting accustomed to clean design, you do not want to stand out as a sore sight to the eyes by using shimmery features that would have worked in the past. Start working on making both your design as well as your user interface as clean, simple, and user-friendly as possible.

Image: Smashing Magazine

Break Up the Page 

One of the key components of visual web design is breaking up space on a site. White space gives visitors a moment to absorb the information they just received. It also draws the eyes around the page in a natural way. When websites have too much information jammed into small areas, it confuses and frustrates the visitor. Don’t be afraid to spread out your site information.

If you optimize your site for usability, readers will be much more inclined to hang out and explore. If you have a lot of information to convey, consider instead using infinite scrolling with a minimalist design. It delivers information at the user’s pace and in a way that’s easy to consume.

If you’re looking for a more structured website, grids, and card design are new trends that work well for every business. They’re responsive and adapt to mobile, and they let you display a wealth of information while still providing space to break up the page. Figuring out how to place your content is one of the most tricky parts of website redesign. But when you get it right, it provides benefits you would have never imagined. It engages the customer, reduces the bounce rate, and builds and maintains brand loyalty. So, take your time but make sure that you figure out the perfect break for your site which will be well received by end customers.

Flush Outdated Fonts

Outdated fonts and stylistic elements can kill your customer base quickly. The fonts you use convey your brand’s image, even subconsciously. Branding companies will tell you that the best example of this is the Nike swoosh and font which displays the free, athletic energy that the brand wants to display to its customers. Older fonts that have gone out of style, such as Comic Sans, look unprofessional and won’t be taken seriously. Visitors will assume you don’t have the time or money to dedicate to updating your website, and that’s not something you want for your business.

Likewise, antiquated styles, such as embossed or beveled fonts, look amateur. Designers used to use fonts and styles like this because they were safe for the web, but these days they’re just plain boring. There are so many font styles that can be incorporated easily onto a website. If your old fonts are tarnished and dusty, throw them out and try something new.

Image: Radiate Digital

Don’t Be a Busy Website

Busy websites are at the pinnacle of bad design. When visitors come to a page that has moving images, loud text, noise, and flashing buttons everywhere, they’re almost guaranteed to leave immediately. Not only do sites like this take a while to load, but they’re a complete eyesore.

The average consumer isn’t patient enough to stick around and try to investigate your brand. They want to know what you’re about within seconds of landing on your site. There’s far too much competition to make your visitors invest more than a few minutes of their time. If your website is a jumble of images, sounds, and text, they’ll simply move on to a more modern competitor.

Web design in 2015 is all about conveying as much information as possible through unobtrusive elements. Less is more.

Image: Siteinspire

So how can you make sure that your web design los angeles is not outdated and is always changing with the times? While there is no foolproof way to do this, there are a few guidelines that can help you have a site that is updated with the times. It might be helpful to visit your site and look at it through the consumer’s eyes. Is it easy to find the information you need – and can you locate it fast? Is the site pleasing to look at and cohesive? Has your eye naturally followed the flow of the page? If your site is anything less than fast, easy, and clean, it’s time to rethink your design.