A Website That Still Says "Copyright 2017" Is Telling Customers Something
Scroll to the bottom of your company website right now. Go on, we will wait. If the footer proudly says "Copyright 2017", then your website is quietly telling every visitor that nobody has looked after it since then. Customers notice, and many of them leave before asking a single question. If that sounds harsh, consider this your friendly nudge towards a website redesign in Kenya, or at least a good spring clean.
What an old website says without saying it
Omondi runs a solid logistics company. Great drivers, happy clients. But his website still showed a phone number that stopped working when the old receptionist left, an email address nobody checked and a homepage slider announcing a festive season offer from several Christmases ago.
A potential client found him on Google, saw all that and assumed the company had closed. She called a competitor instead. Omondi only found out because she mentioned it months later at a wedding in Nakuru.
An outdated website can suggest things you never intended:
That the business has closed, or is struggling
That nobody responds to enquiries
That your services and prices have not changed in years
That you do not take your online presence, or your customers, very seriously
Signs you need a website redesign in Kenya
Not every old website needs a full rebuild. But if several of these sound familiar, it is probably time:
It looks broken or tiny on a phone, which is how most Kenyans browse
It takes forever to load on mobile data
Contact details are wrong, or the contact form goes nowhere
You cannot update it yourself without calling a developer who no longer picks up
It does not explain clearly what you do in the first few seconds
There is no easy way to call, WhatsApp or pay you from the page
The phone point matters most. If your site was designed on a big office monitor and never tested on a basic smartphone in a matatu, many of your visitors are seeing a mess.
Quick wins you can do this week
Before you commission anything new, fix the embarrassing bits:
Update the copyright year, or set it to update automatically
Check every phone number, email and address on the site
Remove expired offers, old events and staff who have left
Test the contact form by sending yourself a message
Add a clear button to call or chat with you
These changes cost little and remove the most obvious red flags. If you cannot make even these small changes because nobody has the login, that is a sign in itself.
What a good modern business website does
A good website does not need to be fancy. It needs to be clear, fast and trustworthy. Visitors should understand within seconds what you do, who you serve and how to reach you. It should work beautifully on phones, load quickly on modest connections, and be easy for your own team to update.
For some businesses, the website can also do real work: taking bookings, accepting M-Pesa or card payments, sharing quotes or letting clients log in to see their records. That is where a website stops being a brochure and becomes part of how the business runs.
Getting the redesign right
If you do go for a redesign, a few tips will save you heartache. Know what you want visitors to do, whether that is call, buy, book or enquire. Make sure you own your domain name and have the logins in the company's name. Ask who will maintain the site after launch. And get a written agreement on what is included.
Philsoft builds and refreshes business websites as part of our web design and development services, so naturally we have opinions on this. But even if you work with someone else, insist on a site you can update yourself.
Your next step: open your website on your phone, pretend you are a stranger, and try to contact yourself. If it takes more than a minute, or you end up somewhere strange, talk to us about a website that works as hard as you do.