How a new website can level up your brand
A website is often your first chance to impress a potential customer and your first chance to build a lasting relationship with them.
But if you’ve had your website for a few years (or longer), it might not be as impressive as it once was.
Creating a new website to replace your existing one can help you dazzle prospective customers again.
Here are some of the advantages a new website can bring to your business.
1. A faster experience your website visitors will love
People hate a slow website. In fact, if a page takes three seconds or longer to load, 40% of people will give up.
If you’ve got an older website, there’s a chance it might not be as fast as it could be. Either because it’s powered by older technology or because it’s accumulated a lot of clutter that’s slowing it down.
By creating a new website, you could take advantage of new technology, such as a modern website builder, and/or declutter your site by focusing on the pages and features that matter most.
In turn, this could help speed up your site leading to a better experience for your visitors.
2. New features which help turn website visitors into customers
Perhaps you want to let people see when they can book a class. Or maybe you’re a restaurant and want to add your menu to your site. It could be that you’d like to offer loyal customers discount coupons to keep them coming back for more.
Any of these features could help turn a casual website browser into a customer.
But adding new features to an old website can be tricky, especially if you paid a web designer to do it for you.
By switching to a new site powered by a modern website builder, you’ll be able to add new features with ease.
For example, the 123 Reg Website Builder Pro allows you to easily integrate a Google Calendar with your site to facilitate online bookings, add a restaurant menu to your site, offer discount coupons and more.
Alternatively, our Web Hosting Pro package comes with access to over 125 free Linux apps with one-click installation. If you’ve got some technical skills and are looking for more flexibility when it comes to building a new site, this could be the right option for you.
3. The chance to refresh your brand’s look
An old website can mean an old logo and outdated imagery. If you decide to refresh your website, it’s often a good idea to go the whole hog and refresh the wider aspects of your brand as well.
You can learn more about creating the right small business brand in this guide.
4. The chance to embrace the latest web design trends
Web design trends come and go. If your website is more than a few years old, you may be stuck with outdated trends that look out of place when compared to your competitors.
Having a website that looks outdated isn’t the end of the world, but it may make your business seem less attractive to some customers.
A refresh will make sure you give the right impression to people.
5. The opportunity to give visitors what they want
Creating a new website gives you the chance to consult with your target to understand what they want from a site like yours.
Conducting audience research before you start creating your new site will help inform everything from the titles of each page on your site to the kinds of images you use.
You can also keep on testing what people think of your new site to make further improvements in the future.
This guide explains how to conduct audience research ahead of creating a new website, while this one looks at testing and improving an existing website.
6. The chance to move to a flexible platform you can update yourself
A change in your opening hours, a new dish on the menu, a new service offering. All business changes you’d want to reflect on your website.
But if your current site was built on an older platform or by a web designer, it may not be easy to make these kinds of regular updates.
With something like the 123 Reg Website Builder, or a site powered by WordPress, you can quickly and easily make changes to your own site.
If making changes to your existing website is time consuming, costly or both, this is one of the best reasons to switch to a new platform.
Summing up
Giving your website a thorough overhaul can help breathe new life into your online business. It’s easier than ever to build a feature-rich site without having to pay a huge amount to a web designer.
The sooner you switch to a new website, the sooner you can start reaping the benefits.
