Websites are not perishable goods. You can make one for your business, put it online, and as long as you pay for your hosting services, the website can be online indefinitely. But should you do that with your website, just put it online and let it be? Probably not. Websites, just like many other digital assets, benefit from regular checkups and tune-ups. Once in a while, websites will need a complete makeover to stay current, functioning, and efficient. If you’re wondering whether your website needs to undergo an overhaul, here are some telltale signs you’ll want to pay attention to.

  1. A High Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is the rate of people who leave your website immediately after landing on it. You want the people visiting your websites to look at more pages than just the one they landed on, which is why a high bounce rate is a sign that something’s not right. In general, website owners are satisfied when the bounce rates are between 40% and 50%. Everything above that is a cause for concern.

There are lots of things that can affect your bounce rates. Some of them don’t have anything to do with your website — a large bounce rate could be a sign that your ad targeting is off. However, it can also be a sign that the navigation on your website is not optimized, or that visitors are not being offered relevant content that will draw them deeper into the website. Either way, you’ll have to figure out what it is and fix it, which might entail a website makeover.

  1. Low Conversion Rates

Similarly to bounce rates, low conversion rates could have a cause that has nothing to do with the website. It can be the fault of your audience targeting, for example.

Or it could be that your website copy is not good enough, that the content you’re posting isn’t relevant, design is so bad that people who want to convert can’t figure out how to do it, your forms might be too long. Low conversion rates are one of the reasons to examine your website and change it to improve its performance.

  1. Lack of Mobile-Optimization

There’s a good reason why everyone (and their grandmother) is saying that every website needs to be optimized for mobile. People are increasingly using their mobile devices to surf the Internet, or shop online, or access social media. Pretty much everything that used to be done on a desktop computer. If you don’t give the people the user experience they expect, there are good chances you’ll never see them on your website again.

So let’s stop that from happening! You have several options to make your website optimized for mobile, but the one that comes with the most recommendations is responsive design. With responsive design, the pages on your website adapt to the device they’re being viewed on, ensuring that the same page will provide a good user experience regardless of the device.

  1. Small Edits Are Adding Up

There might not be anything major wrong with your website. It can be perfectly fine in general, with only a few quirks you need to fix occasionally. But when those small quirks start adding up, and your website starts having too much downtime, and the fixes start being too expensive, it could be time for a major overhaul.

You’ll have to crunch some numbers and see which option is more financially viable to you. However, a full overhaul will come with an added benefit reducing the downtime and not having to worry whether a small issue will pop up in the worst moment possible.

  1. You’ve Outgrown Your Website

Your business will grow, your branding will change, and the trends will move on. At one point or another, any one of these will change how will well your website serves your business.

Some of these changes can only require a quick touch up for your website, maybe changing some colors, or changing the logo. But if the website doesn’t fill out the business’ needs regarding functionality, that might require a full-blown overhaul.