When should you redesign your e-commerce store

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The look of your site is important, but it is a focal point when you run a business online. Brick and mortar stores that have an online site have multiple paths to sales. When you have an e-commerce store, a poorly made site can mean the difference between staying in business and going under. Does it seem like your growth should be further along? It might be time to fix your site and do a redesign. In this article, we will look at reasons why you will want to change the designs for your e-commerce store. Let’s see when it makes sense to hire a company to help you increase sales.

Dynamic Sites

Some industries change faster than others. The field of technology is constantly shifting at a break-neck pace in comparison to an industry like logistics/shipping which has largely remained the same for many years. This brings us to a crucial question. When should you consider a redesign for your e-commerce site?

  • Sales have slowly been declining for an extended period of time
  • The site doesn’t perform well on all platforms
  • Competitors are taking a large amount of your market share
  • Rebranding is needed

All of these are factors that can mean it is time for action. It is important to keep a close eye on your analytics and metrics. Key performance indicators can be used to see if you are reaching your goals or falling short each quarter. Have you noticed that it seems your sales are slowly decreasing? This could be due to any number of reasons, but if your sales mainly come from the web, you need to rethink your site design.

An overhaul for your site will not be simple or easy. If it is done incorrectly, you can compound the issue and change what was working well for you before. You should consider calling in the experts who can help with testing and focus groups. Digital Silk is known for custom web design in Miami. They can help provide some insight into what consumers are looking for and what works well in a user flow. If you are looking for custom web design in Miami, give them a call for a quick quote. They can go over plans to increase conversions and sales with your key demographics. This guide will go over some of the main reasons why you need to shift the design for your site.

Rebranding

With digital marketing, many companies have expanded out into social media and blog articles to attract new customers. Platforms like Twitter and Facebook both provide access to a world full of potential customers. Even better, these platforms are free to use. If you put out quality content, it is going to attract mentions and people posting your information multiple times.

This can work against you though as you run social media campaigns. Over and over, we have seen that the team running the social media channels are separate from the rest of the marketing team. Managers view these two things as different. Social media marketing is still part of your overall strategy and needs to be treated like an integral part of your marketing plan. If the voice of your advertising and logos on social media are different from the rest of the site, it can be jarring for customers. They might click on an ad located on Instagram that invokes certain ideas or feels heavily branded. When they visit your site, the visuals are so different, the user assumes they clicked on the wrong ad or they were redirected to the wrong website. This is an example of when you need to have your e-commerce site redesigned.

If it seems that there is a conflict between your marketing efforts on social platforms or blogging articles, figure out which branding is attracting more consumers. Through extensive testing where the user speaks their thoughts out loud, you can get a better idea of what ads are attracting people to click on your site. If the team running your social media is getting the right results, change your main site to match the look and feel. Trusted pay per click marketing firms can look over your numbers and tell you which side of your marketing you need to bring in line with everything else. 

New Direction

Companies are never stagnant. If they do not shift and evolve, they will eventually die out. Agile companies are always looking for new avenues of income and ways to increase regular revenue. As new services and products are added in, it can result in the need for a total site overhaul.

Think about a local restaurant. The scene for restaurants has shifted on a seismic scale. In the past few years, almost every restaurant has had to make major changes to how they do business. If they move into catering or using food trucks to stay compliant with local laws, this brings all-new challenges for their online store. New pages have to be added along with images. All of the branding has to stay in line with what is already established or you will need a new stylebook. 

On top of this, you also will need new features for your site. Say a restaurant has just added catering to the list of services they offer. Now you should construct a way for a customer to build a menu and then have an estimate for cost at the bottom of the page. Once a customer can see the overall cost to go with your catering service, they will be able to easily compare your products with your competition. This of course can result in having to hire a team to redesign your e-commerce store. Trusted pay per click marketing firms can speak with you and show you where you should tighten up your general look.

The Site Is Not Responsive

Is your site responsive? More than half of web traffic is coming from mobile devices. This means the majority of users are looking at your site on a phone, tablet, or some other mobile device. If you want increased sales for e-commerce sites, you need the site to be easy to navigate, simple to purchase items, and it should be responsive. 

You can’t expect to just port your desktop site over to mobile with no thought. The breakpoints will not be set and the content will be impossible to access from a mobile device. Users won’t be able to see all of your blog post or the images you spent so much time working on. If you notice from your study of analytics that it seems like mobile users are having a harder time buying from your site, it may be time to think about a redesign.

Looking through the analytics provided by Google Analytics is a good way to figure out where your traffic is coming from. You can filter out your results to show you what each user is using. Are they coming in through Android devices? Do your buyers prefer iOS? These things factor into designing your mobile site with professionals. In terms of SEO, Google many times is ranking mobile sites higher in the listing in comparison to the desktop counterpart. You can have the best article writers and terms that you are shooting for, but if you are not showing up high enough in your SEO rankings, it will cost you a huge amount of sales. Most users will not even go past the first page of results!

Test Performance

There are many ways to test the performance of your online store. How long does it take to load on various devices? Where are you showing up in the SERPs? Google provides many tools so you can experiment with different ways of displaying your site either on mobile or on desktop. If it seems like your site is lagging behind the others in the industry, it is probably time to call in the pros so they can look at your site.

When your site loads slowly, it is going to give you a high bounce rate. If you are not even aware of your current bounce rate, this is an emergency situation. You need to speak with a professional web designer ASAP to preserve your sales. Bounce rate refers to customers that visit the site and click back after a short period of time due to long loading times. Professional site administrators study their bounce rate with a careful eye. Even small changes to a site can result in a big jump in the bounce rate. If you speak with a professional design team, they can show you how to access things like your current bounce rate and recommend ways to redesign your site so that things load faster and more efficiently.

Wrapping Up

In conclusion, there are many factors to consider when you think about the right time to shift the design for your site. It should be in line with the rest of your branding, display well on mobile devices, and also be performant. Any one of these aspects left behind will cost you revenue and your reputation. By working with many of the free tools mentioned in this guide and speaking with the experts, you can determine the right time to redesign your e-commerce store.

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