When A Website Reskin Is Required For Your Website

The internet and online world moves fast. Before you know it, the beautiful, sleek, modern website you commissioned is beginning to show its age in ways that you can’t quite put your finger on, all you know is that your competitor websites all have a pop and zing to them that yours is lacking and it is in the back of your mind every day to do something about it.

However, the thought of getting a new website or dealing with a complete overhaul of your current one is as about as fun as deciding to switch your bank account with all its direct debits, saving’s accounts and inflows, to a new one; you just keep on putting it off and the problem only continues to get worse.

While migrating to a new website might turn out to be quite involved, there is a way around this problem that involves less time, effort and expense and it is commonly referred to by the tech savvy as a ‘website reskin’.

What Are The Differences Between a Website Reskin And A Website Redesign?

Although it may sound like the same thing, to reskin a website and to redesign one are two quite distinct options with different goals in mind.

To illustrate, let’s look at two different scenarios.

Scenario 1

Imagine for example, that you are a restaurant owner and you have recently carried out a renovation and made some significant menu changes. You have decided that your website needs to look a more fresh and contemporary look to reflect these changes, but basically you will still be offering great food and excellent service at a competitive price. Essentially, your website will be doing the same thing as it did before; it will showcase your restaurant as an inviting location, with a contemporary dining experience and enable your customers to make a reservation online.

This is a clear case of needing a website reskin. You can always hire a web developer so he can decide whether you need a solid small business web design and implement a valid strategy.

Scenario 2

You are the owner of an insurance brokerage and have been in business for several decades. Your website showcases your deep experience and reliability in the field of insurance products and shows how to get in contact with you by phone, email or via social media.

More and more you hear your clients request that they be able to compare insurance packages online and to sign up for insurance premiums through your website without having to make a visit to your office or make a lengthy phone call.

You decide that you would like to turn your website from an informational resource into a platform that empowers your customers to make informed decisions about their insurance policies and then sign up for various packages without you having to interact with them at length on the phone or in person in your office.

This will require vastly new functionality to be integrated into your online presence and will require a major overhaul of your website. This will fall squarely into the category of a website redesign or will even involve replacing your old website entirely.

Reskin Or Redsign – Which Do I Need?

In the vast majority of cases, the answer is going to be the former. In the present day, virtually every business not only has a perfectly functional website in place, but is already onto the 3rd, 4th, 5th or 10th version of their original 2D, non-interactive website from the late 90s.

In the past, as the web developed, there were often excellent reasons for substantial upgrades and changes to company websites, as the capabilities of the internet to deliver interactive content evolved by leaps and bounds, but today, it is highly likely that your website simply needs a fresh new look with improvement to some key metrics that will make your customers and clients have a better overall experience as they interact with your business online.

The 5 Signals That Let You Know It’s Time For A Website Reskin

Other than a vague feeling of unease, what are the five main reasons you know it is time for a reskin?

Let’s take a look.

Signal #1 – Your Conversion Rates Are Down

‏Or to put it another way, sales, bookings, calls or whatever your conversion criteria are, have tanked. Your metrics are showing you that conversions are in decline despite your offerings and products being competitive with your peers on price and quality.
‏So what gives?

‏One major cause of this can be if your website has begun to load slowly of late. If you have time to check your email, or your Facebook page for updates while your website loads, then you are in trouble, and conversion rates will sink through the basement floor.

‏Luckily, this isn’t as difficult to solve as it appears. It may be, for example, that your website has become top-heavy with behind the scenes widgets that are never used and a skilled developer can lighten the load without changing the appearance and without any requirement to rebuild the pages from scratch.

Signal #2 – Traffic To Your Website Is Down

‏Even if you have a brick and mortar business and footfall is still good, a drop in website traffic can be a canary in the gold-mine signal that things are not all well. Less traffic online will ultimately lead to less business and you may even be feeling the effects already. You will need to improve your site rankings in search engine search results, most importantly via Google, and a website reskin can help you to achieve this.

‏The cause of the drop may be something as mundane as your website looking dated and old-fashioned. As superficial as it may seem, no matter what business you are in, an old-school website can be incredibly off-putting and is a surprisingly easy problem to solve in the hands of the right designer.

‏Like all of the issues described here, this will not require a ground-up redesign with the risk of data loss and your business going off-line for substantial and nerve-racking amounts of time. A fresh new look can be easily achieved and can make a surprising difference in the amount of visits your website will receive.

Signal #3 – Bounce Rate

‏Users are abandoning your website before making a purchase or they are leaving after only the briefest of visits without so much as taking the time to browse the site or interact with any of your content.

‏This is a giant red flag that your online presence is in urgent need of a reskinning a website and as a business owner, this is not something you can afford to sit on.

‏The goal is for your bounce rate to be as low as possible and while this sounds like a technical challenge, it will involve look-and-feel as much as any behind the scenes optimization. A clean, crisp, modern design can go a long way towards solving this problem, together with other technical optimisations to make sure your site is responsive and easy to use.

Signal #4 – Did Someone Say ‘Responsive’?

‏If your pages are loading with the speed of the grass growing in your back garden, or more accurately, if they are even slightly slower than the average, then no matter how beautiful and crafted your website is, the truth is that you can most likely say goodbye to that potential new client or even receive some push-back from your existing ones.

‏And it’s not only about the speed of your pages on a computer either. In today’s world a large proportion, even the majority for some services, will be carried out on a mobile phone. If your website isn’t mobile-friendly then you are excluding yourself from this increasing percentage of your target audience.

‏Your site may look fine and load fine on a desktop or laptop, but if it’s a mess on a smartphone or tablet, you will need someone to take care of this for you. While it sounds very technically involved, the truth is that a skilled professional can take care of this quite easily without any impact on your data or day-to-day operations.

‏Search engines, and in particular Google, take this aspect of your online presence into account, so if you haven’t already taken care of this then a proper reskinning website may be in order.

Signal #5 – Your Competitors Are Ranking Above You

‏If your competitors are consistently ranking higher than you in the search results, you have a problem.

Even worse, if you find that you are not on the first page of results at all, then the truth is that you may as well have no website at all.

‏If this is the case then you need to find out as a matter of priority why this is happening and adjust the on-site optimisation of your site accordingly. As with the other key signals above, this does not require any new functionality to be added to your website, but certainly some specific changes to your sites visibility to search engines will be required and this again falls into the category of a website reskin.

How Do I Get It Done?

Fear not, help is at hand. If you have ticked all of the above boxes, or even some of them, then you need to reach out to someone who can take care of this for you with the minimum of interruption to your business and in the most cost effective way possible.

A full reskin with the potential to transform your business will cost a fraction of redesigning from the ground up or of migrating your sensitive customer and company data to a new platform. A competent and skilled professional with the right experience can carry out a highly effective reskin with a minimum of disruption and at a cost that will quickly be recouped in new and repeat business.

If you have any questions about the process of a website reskin or think your business may need one, feel free to reach out to us here and we will be happy to guide you through the process. Our mission is to help your business achieve success by doing for you what we do best.