If you’re like most entrepreneurs, you’ve been busy building your business and haven’t thought much about your website in a while. If your site hasn’t been touched in a couple of years or more, it may actually be hurting your company, rather than helping it. While you’ve been focusing on growing your company a lot has changed on the Internet and it directly impacts your website, therefore your business. So how do you know when it’s time to upgrade?
Here are 4 surefire clues you need a new website:
Clue #1: You Can’t Make Changes To Your Website On The Fly
Do you need to contact your developer every time you need a change that doesn’t require a website redesign? It’s pretty annoying, right? But that’s the way it is for so many businesses. Make the decision, make the call, wait for the work to be done, and then get a bill. Yuck.
Today’s websites are built so that you can easily make changes all by yourself. We build mostly on the WordPress platform, which is pretty simple for even a not-very-techie person to use. Our clients can add new pages, make text changes, swap or add photos, post blogs, etc.
What’s more, search engines such as Google give priority to websites that consistently add new pages (such as blog posts). So if your content is stale and you haven’t added a new page since the site was built, it will likely never show up on the first page of a Google search, unless the user searches for your company name, and sometimes not even then!
Consistently updated websites get more visibility.
Clue #2: Your Website Has Obsolete Information
The wrong address, outdated staff bios, and headshots that show a much younger you are all signs that an upgrade is necessary. I’ve helped a quite a number of successful companies that came to me not being able to even find the developer who built the site in the first place! It happens.
Why is it important to keep your website content correct? Because confusion and roadblocks will interrupt the buying cycle. As our attention spans on the web get shorter every day it is more important than ever that your brand promise, benefits, calls to action, and contact info are instantly visible to your visitors during their first three to seven seconds on your site. If that isn’t the case you’re likely going to lose those visitors and you won’t get them back anytime soon.
An up-to-date website benefits your business.
3. Your Website Is Built In Flash
Flash is a program that was quite popular for websites for a few years, especially for highly visual businesses such as photographers, videographers, designers and architects. But Flash has two big problems. The first is load time. Most flash sites force visitors to wait while the site loads. This is a really bad experience for a visitor with of with a miniscule attention span.
Secondly, with Flash Google can’t see the content on pages; therefore making the chances very low that website will be delivered in search for anything besides the brand. Couple that with slow load times and search engine visibility can be hopeless.
Websites that are built in Flash suffer in visibility.
4. Your Website Is Not Mobile Responsive
Mobile devices now account for 60% of all Internet connections. People don’t just use their mobile devices as consumers either. Business-to-business decision makers are using them, too. Google recently reported that 92% of executives own a smartphone for business and 77% of them use it to research products and services for their companies. That could mean huge consequences for your business.
If that’s not all, on April 21, 2015 Google started penalizing website that are not optimized for mobile by lowering their PageRank in search results. This is such a big deal in the industry that it’s being called “Mobilegeddon.” When visitors must zoom or manipulate your site in order to use it on a phone or tablet, they probably won’t go deeper to fill out a form, read a blog, or call you.
Companies with mobile responsive websites get more visitors.
It’s important to the health and future of your business to keep your website up to date, eliminate confusion and roadblocks, and offer a stellar experience for mobile device users. This all adds up to the kind of powerful brand experience you want for your customers.
So, do you need a new website?
In case you missed it:
Should We All Stop Posting Images On Facebook?
You Don’t See What Your Customers See On Google
My Cat Is A Brilliant Marketer
