Five Signs Your Website is Old and Due for a Redesign

Your company's website is the virtual front door to your business. It's often the first experience potential customers have with your brand before they ever pick up the phone or walk through your actual doors.

An outdated, slow, or poorly designed website can be the difference between those prospects converting into buyers - or bouncing away to a competitor before giving you a chance. In today's world of endless options and short attention spans, a stale website simply won't cut it.

The question is, how can you tell when your site has passed its prime and it's time for an overhaul? Here are five telltale signs that it may be due for a full redesign and rebuild:

1. It's Not Mobile Responsive

Back in the late 2000s and early 2010s, it was common for websites to be designed just for desktop viewing. But as mobile devices became ubiquitous, that ship has long since sailed. The numbers don't lie - over half of all website traffic today comes from mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

If your site still uses the same desktop-minded layout and navigation regardless of the screen size, then you're providing a poor user experience for the majority of your visitors. A site that isn't mobile responsive results in tons of pinching, zooming, and squinting required from mobile users just to read content and click buttons / links. Not exactly a winning formula for conversions.

The fix: At a bare minimum, you can install a third-party responsive plugin to help "mobilize" your current site in the short term. But a ground-up responsive redesign built with a modern front-end framework is the proper long-term solution.

Need mobilizing your outdated site? Marcel Digital has deep expertise crafting lightning-fast responsive web experiences tailored to all devices. Reach out for a free assessment.

2. Your Load Times Are Unacceptably Slow

Speaking of speed... how long does your current website take to fully load these days? More than 3 seconds? That's an eternity in internet time. Sluggish page speeds have been shown to directly correlate with higher bounce rates and fewer conversions.

There are a number of potential culprits that could be bogging down your site's performance. Maybe you're running out-of-date software or plugins that need updating. Perhaps you have media assets like images and videos that need optimizing and compression. Or it could simply be that the underlying architecture is creaky and overdue for modernization.

The fix: You can run the site through tools like Google PageSpeed Insights, WebPageTest, and Lighthouse to get a detailed report on what exactly is causing slow load times and how to fix it. Removing bloated code, leveraging browser caching, and switching to a content delivery network can provide speed boosts. But if the core problem is the tech stack itself, a rebuild may be required.

Tired of a clunky site that can't keep up with today's need for speed? The seasoned devs at Marcel have the chops to build you a blazing-fast front-end atop battle-tested .NET and Umbraco backends. Let's talk performance wins.

3. You're Dealing with Constant Hack Attempts / Security Issues

We live in an age where cybersecurity threats feel like a constant modern reality. If your current website has begun experiencing a pattern of security vulnerabilities being exploited for breaches, SQL injection hacks, malware infestations, and DDoS attacks - this could be a sign that the platform is no longer up to modern security standards.

Out-of-date content management systems, coding languages, hosting environments, and third-party plugins / extensions can all leave your website open to potential compromises if they are not keeping up with the newest security patches and protocols.

The fix: You can engage cybersecurity experts to do a full audit, add monitoring tools, and put further security hardening in place for your existing site. But the nagging question is, how long until new exploits emerge that put you in this same boat again?

For true peace of mind and a website locked down from every angle, you want an experienced dev team that lives and breathes modern web security best practices. At Marcel, we build every solution to be secure by design on the latest .NET / Umbraco frameworks staying current with Microsoft's frequent security updates. No more worrying about white hat / black hat hacking headaches.

4. Your CMS is Ancient and Limited

If you've ever tried to make a basic content edit or update on your current website, only to feel like you're wrestling with an archaic or overly complex system, then you know the pain of an outdated content management system (CMS).

An ineffective CMS workflow filled with friction makes it cumbersome for your team to keep your site updated with fresh content - which is the lifeblood of getting found in search and keeping visitors engaged. Not to mention the limitations and technical debt involved with trying to integrate new tools and add advanced functionality down the road.

The fix: Look into migrating to a modern, intuitive CMS built with a best-of-breed content editing experience in mind. The latest versions make it easy to manage content, optimize for search, and unlock new capabilities through seamless third-party integrations.

At Marcel, our certified team of Umbraco experts can help you harness the full power of this flexible, open-source .NET CMS tailored for businesses demanding nothing less than an extensible platform to grow with them long into the future. Streamlined publishing, out-of-the-box search optimization, and an endless aisle of add-ons await.

5. Your Website Lacks Accessibility

Is your website compliant with the latest WCAG accessibility standards to ensure visitors with disabilities can experience and interact with the site with assistive technologies like screen readers? Beyond being an important legal and ethical consideration, having an accessible web presence also delivers SEO benefits while expanding your potential audience.

However, accessibility is one of those things that often gets deprioritized or flat-out ignored during legacy website builds. It requires strategic thought and developer know-how to bake accessibility best practices in from the ground up.

The fix: You can run your existing site through auditing tools to identify accessibility issues and attempt to patch them one by one through manual code tweaks. But the better solution may be to start fresh on an accessible-first tech stack.

Marcel has years of experience delivering equitable online experiences that meet ADA and WCAG 2.1 AA standards out of the box. From optimized heading structures and keyboard navigation support to alt text configurability and color contrast compliance, we cross every accessibility "t" and dot every "i." Let us show you an inclusively designed web presence worthy of your brand.

The Clear Path Forward For a Fresh Web Experience

The writing's on the wall. If you're nodding along to several of these red flags about your existing website - then it's time to start strongly considering a full rebuild on a modernized foundation that can take your digital presence into the future and beyond.

Don't let an obsolete, insecure, or user-hostile site be the anchor weighing down your business. An investment in a professional redesign from an experienced agency partner delivers compounding returns in the form of:

• Better user experiences that convert more leads
• An optimized pipeline bringing more traffic through search
• Seamless third-party tool / martech integrations
• Streamlined content publishing & site management
• Peace of mind with a secure & accessible web presence
• A development roadmap to add cutting-edge features over time
• And more.

The web development team here at Marcel Digital lives and breathes crafting these bespoke marketing engines for companies wanting to leave their old, clunky site woes behind. Our proven process blends strategic insight and technological horsepower in perfect harmony. We deliver blistering-fast builds atop battle-tested architectures like Microsoft .NET and Umbraco - while striking that delicate balance between aesthetic wow factor and seamless functionality.

Is your site stuck in the past and overdue for a fresh start? Let's talk about redesign strategies that can open new digital doors for your business. Reach out today for a free website assessment and consultation from Marcel Digital.