The most obvious sign of a problem in web design is traffic. If the number of visitors coming to your site has dropped sharply, something is amiss.

Most likely, an SEO problem has arisen, moving the site down in the SERPs. If people are bouncing from your page as a result of poor graphics or poor mobile design, a site will cannonball on the SERPs, dropping traffic. A dip in the number of visitors is a huge red flag that you need to spend time investigating your site design.

57% of internet users say they won’t recommend a business with a poorly designed website on mobile. Nowadays, consumers can purchase anything at any time. While this is good for your business, it needs to be monitored in terms of design. Modern websites must be responsive, providing an optimal user experience on all different types of devices.

Traffic source can monitor on which device type people are accessing a site. Websites need to be ultra-responsive. Otherwise, you are in need of a redesign! Keep an eye out for problems with mobile traffic. As of Q2 2018, smartphones held a 63% share of all retail website visits.

Bounce rate is the metric that shows the number of visitors who opened a site and then left before interacting with it. A high bounce rate indicates that visitors are not engaging with the page at all. This could mean that the site looks spammy, is irrelevant to their search terms, or has an outbound link that the user clicked immediately.

All of these behaviors lead to one result: zero conversions. If your website has a high bounce rate, you may want to consider a redesign ASAP.

In April 2012, Google added Speed Index to its WebPagetest for measuring site performance. Speed Index is the average time in milliseconds at which visible parts of the web page are populated and displayed. In other words, it measures how fast the user receives viewable content.

How does it work? WebPageTest records a page as it loads. 10 frames per second are analyzed to see the percentage of content loaded. Because Speed Index is based on the percentage of the viewport, you can use this metric to compare sites across desktop, mobile, and tablet viewing.

It only takes 0.05 seconds for users to decide if they like a site or not. Slow loading speeds affect this decision and can cause visitors to bounce.

A page’s exit rate shows the percentage of visitors leaving a site on a certain page. Oftentimes, a user exiting a page is no cause for concern. Similar to the bounce rate, visitors can leave a site even if there are no on-page problems. Alternatively, if an exit rate is too high, that could be an indicator that people are leaving the page because of design issues.

Engagement metrics show how visitors interact with a site. These metrics can measure the duration and depth of a user’s experience. If a user is interacting with a site, it is a signal that the content is both attractive and easily accessible to visitors. While there is no universal standard for “good” engagement, using your best-performing pages for reference can give you an idea of engagement goals.

One of the most accessible engagement metrics is ‘session duration’. Google Analytics shows how much time visitors spend on the site and its individual pages. Although session duration is not always 100% accurate, (keeping a few tabs open can confuse data), it can still be used as a great metric to measure engagement.

If engagement is low, it is a good time to look into a redesign! 38% of people will stop engaging with a website if the content or layout is unattractive.

If any of these indicators remind you of your site, there is no time to waste! Slow, unattractive, or unresponsive websites are losing you money.