4 Reasons Why Your Website Needs a Reskin

What is a reskin?

The skin of your website is all the aesthetic stuff: the look and feel.

So, a reskin is when the structure and function of your website stay the same, but the looks change. You can choose to change just a few things, like colours, logos, and fonts, but sometimes the entire theme needs to change.

The cost of a reskin and the amount of time it will take depends on the extent of the changes that need to be made, so it usually involves a conversation with your web developer.

4 reasons why your website needs a reskin

1. You've done a rebrand

This one's a no-brainer: the moment you implement a new logo, colour scheme, font, or any other visual aspect of your brand, it must appear on your website. Making sure your brand looks consistent across all channels, especially on your website, is key to building a strong, trustworthy, and memorable brand.

2. It looks outdated

This is the internet. Things are constantly changing, and sometimes your website just looks old. That can make you look untrustworthy, out of touch, and like you don't care about your brand.

While good web design principles stay the same over time, things like trends, how people get to and use websites, and what they use to access your website, change more often. These are the things you need to consider when refreshing the look of your site.

For example: if your website is not mobile responsive (which means it doesn't show up nicely on mobile devices), you'll want to change that, like, yesterday. Most people access the internet on mobile devices and will immediately click away from websites that are difficult to use or look unattractive (like these hilarious but unfortunate examples) on their phones or tablets.

Who knows what game-changing device the tech companies have up their sleeves? You want your website to look and feel great, no matter the size of the screen.

3. You want to re-engage your website visitors

Keep an eye on your website analytics. Sometimes the numbers will tell you when it's time for a change.

A sudden dip or even a steady decline in engagement or an increase in bounce rate (which is the percentage of people who click away from your site without taking any action on the site) may indicate that your current look and feel isn't doing it for people anymore.

There may be other reasons for a drop in activity, like a decrease in marketing efforts or poor search engine optimisation, but having a website that is appealing to visitors can go a long way towards re-engaging them.

4. It's been 2-3 years since your last reskin

Sometimes it's not so easy to tell from your analytics or a visceral "ew, that's outdated" feeling that your website is ready for a reskin. Maybe you've gone for a fairly simple look that doesn't age as quickly as some others.

In this case, it helps to just schedule a regular reskin. We (and Forbes) recommend that you go about 2-3 years between reskins. This usually prevents your website from ever looking outdated.

So put it in your calendar, but don't forget to keep an eye on the other reasons listed above in case you need a reskin sooner.

Remember: a reskin includes only the visual aspects of your website. If there's something about the functionality and structure of your website that needs to be changed, you might need to rebuild parts of it or even the entire website.

Still not sure if your website needs a reskin? Or have you, after readings this, realised it's time to refresh your website? Contact us and we'll chat about it.