Websites have now become an essential part of a lot of businesses. It has long gone from just being a company’s online business card or brochure to one of the greatest assets a company can have. It can be a tool to grow your name and business and can be a great investment.
As websites have now become a home to businesses and have already provided a return of investment to some, making it efficient and user-friendly should always be a priority.
Importance of Website to your Business
Your website can be of great impact on how people will see your brand. It will be your online face and most people will remember your brand through it. Other importance of having a website includes:
- Build brand awareness – your website is an avenue where you can translate to your online audience what you offer and what makes you unique. It also seals the impression of customers towards your brand
- Cost-effective – as your website act as your online brochure, it allows you to cut down rate on offline advertising
- Works 24/7 – a well-designed, user-friendly and updated website can act as your virtual business assistant that can provide visitors with what they are looking for and be able to close sales
- Create customer relationship – having a functioning website can earn the trust of existing and potential clients that eventually turns into your most loyal customers
As your website acts as your online ambassador, it is important to keep it up to date. If you have been keeping your website running for some time already and you are not really sure if you need to update right away, here are three things you have to check if your website needs the necessary overhaul.
- You haven’t done an upgrade for a while
Your website was created five years ago and you haven’t touch anything ever since. With trends coming out and developed now and then, your website is surely out-of-date now.
- Your website is not responsive
If your website design is not responsive as it used to be, it will probably not work on mobile and tablet devices which has become the new go-to devices of people to surf the internet thus you need to schedule an update already.
- Your website is not user-friendly
If not all your site’s boxes can be ticked, then you will probably lose a lot of users along the way as your site needs a much-needed fix.
Furthermore, here are 10 compelling reasons why you need to do a website update and why you have to do it now.
Reasons you Need to Upgrade your Website
- Visual Appeal
The first thing that your visitors see on your site is your website’s appearance. The visual appeal of your website is the reflection of your business and your organization. It sets the first impression and how you will be perceived by your potential clients.
What looks good five years ago when you first created your website will not be as cool as the trends today. If your design was the hip a few years ago and you have done nothing to it after a few years, most probably it is now outdated. When visitors and your potential customers stumble upon this, they will be greeted by your outdated design and will probably think the same about your company.
Your site should look nice, pleasing to the eyes, easy to work around, and can be navigated on multiple devices. It should highlight your products or services that will encourage visitors to check you even further and eventually become your client.
- Social Links
Your social media channels should be seamless with your website. It is an essential part to help your online presence grow online. Adding social media links to your website allows customers to follow you and keep in touch with you. As your site acts as your corporate page, your social media profiles let them see the human side of your company which makes you more authentic and trustworthy.
- Security
One of the main reasons for upgrading your website is security.
You may have heard a lot about websites being hacked a lot of times. A lot of things can be compromised if your site will be put at risk and cybercriminals find sneaky ways to attack you. Your website can slow down to a crawl if they will be able to infiltrate your backend. This can get you blacklisted and visitors will be barred from accessing your website. They can’t also send messages to you.
One way to combat this is to make sure your website always up to date. Make sure that your programs whatever you are using, keep up with the recent updates.
- Content
Once you were able to capture the attention of your visitors with your visual appeal, they should be able to find more reason to stay and browse your site. This is where your content should come into play.
If your content is outdated and your blogs still date several years ago, your potential clients will not spend another 2 – 3 seconds on your site. When you do your website update, it is also important to fine-tune your content. It is essential as this will drive visitors to be converted to your future customers.
- Call-to-Action Buttons
Once your visitor got hook on to your content, it is important that they be the urge to do something. Call-to-action buttons or links are placed on your website to drive visitors to complete an action on your landing page.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
The way your content worked for your SEO five years ago will be most likely not relevant these days. SEO trends and algorithms have been changing rapidly and if you do not keep up, you will be surely left behind.
As you update your site’s content, it is a good opportunity also to reassess your SEO settings to make sure you are still on top of the game.
- Experience
Your site should be more than how it looks. Your website should be easily navigated, few annoying pop-ups and does not use flash players (which do not work on Apple mobile products). It should also give as much as little or no friction when users try to do an action inside like trying to send you an email or adding items to your cart or checking out items for purchase. If your last update was five years ago, your website may experience glitches that will not favor the user experience of your site’s visitor.
- Speed
The loading time of your website will be a major factor for visitors to stay or not stay. Before anyone sees the content of your site, they will first encounter the load speed. People only wait for a few seconds for a website to load before they go to the next option and most probably they won’t go back to your website shortly soon.
Doing an overhaul to your site will give reorganize your pages and navigation system. Reevaluate your web hosting company and check your load speeds. If it takes a few seconds to load, you have the risk to lose your impatient customers.
- Mobile friendly
If your website was done a few years ago, most probably the call for mobile-friendly devices is still to happen yet. These days, more and more people have been ditching their laptop and desktop computers for their mobile devices.
If you want your website to still matter and still be relevant to daily searches made by internet users, you need to make it mobile-friendly. If your site won’t open, they will most likely abandon you and turn in to your competitors instead.
- Measuring Tools
One of the key features of today’s website is its ability to measure its effectiveness. If your website is still on a five-year ago update, most probably it does not have the modern tools to measure your success. Upgrading your website gives you access to these measuring tools that will ensure your website’s ROI.
Final Thoughts
Revamping your website is a huge task and requires cost from you. It will take a lot of work and a lump of patience along the way. However it will be worth it. It can increase your web traffic and you have a bigger chance to find more leads than can be converted into sales.
By adding new features and trimming all of the out-of-dates factors, you can definitely optimize your website, make the most out of it, and make it work for your advantage.
AUTHOR’S BIO
JOHN OCAMPOS
John Ocampos is an Opera Singer by profession and a member of the Philippine Tenors. Ever since, Digital Marketing has always been his forte. He is the Founder of SEO-Guru, and the Managing Director of Tech Hacker. John is also the Strategic SEO and Influencer Marketing Manager of Softvire Australia – the leading software eCommerce company in Australia and Softvire New Zealand.
