HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOUR WEBSITE IS OUTDATED?

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How do you know if your website is outdated?

Your website serves as the online face and digital business card of your company. By keeping your website up to date, you help ensure that visitors who reach your website have a pleasant online experience with your company. If your website is effective enough, those visitors will turn into loyal repeat customers. Here are the top signs that indicate that your website is outdated:

1) Your pages take more than two or three seconds to load

“According to surveys done by Akamai and Gomez.com, nearly half of web users expect a site to load in 2 seconds or less, and they tend to abandon a site that isn’t loaded within 3 seconds. 79% of web shoppers who have trouble with web site performance say they won’t return to the site to buy again and around 44% of them would tell a friend if they had a poor experience shopping online.” – Neil Patel, Entrepreneur and Co-Founder of Neil Patel Digital

Loading speed is critical to your website’s ability to attract and retain visitors. Today’s consumers have short attention spans and many will abandon your website if they are forced to wait longer than a second or two for your pages to load. In fact, slow loading pages are almost as detrimental as sending your customers an invitation to visit your top competitors’ websites.

2) Your site is full of low-quality images

Poor quality images are a telltale sign of an ancient website. If your site is filled with photos that are dark, blurry, or overexposed, your customers will not be able to see if your products contain the features they require. This can be particularly detrimental if you own an e-commerce store because visitors may leave your site to visit a competitor’s site simply to view clearer photos.

3) The copyright date on your site is from last year (or older!)

“If a visitor were to notice that a website was displaying last year’s date, they are going to assume the website is outdated or the owner is not bothered enough to change it. This is not good for building brand or trust with visitors and will inevitably affect the engagement and conversions of the site.” – Vincent Zegna, Partner and Founder of Sonet Digital

There is no excuse for an old copyright date on your website. If you do not have the time to manually update the copyright date, you can program your website to automatically update your site with the current date. Failure to make this simple update sends a clear and accurate message that you are doing nothing to keep your site current.

4) The last post to your blog (if you even have one!) was months ago

Customers are known for jumping to inaccurate conclusions. And if you start a blog and suddenly stop posting regularly, your customers may incorrectly assume that you have closed your doors or do not have the resources to handle their business.

5) Your customers have no way to communicate with you

Many websites of yore offered few ways for customers to contact your company or submit an online request for information. If your website lacks your contact information or a way for your customer to engage with your company, you will quickly lose prospects to your competitors whose websites offer these features.

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WHAT MEASURES SHOULD YOU TAKE BEFORE YOU UPDATE YOUR SITE?

Now that you have confirmed that your website is in desperate need of a facelift, there are some key steps you need to take to ensure that your website’s overhaul proceeds smoothly. Here are a few measures you can take to lay the foundation for a successful update:  

1) Secure the buy-in of key stakeholders

Securing the buy-in of your CEO, CFO, and VP of Sales is vital to ensuring that your executive team understands the costs and benefits of updating your website. You can achieve this goal by preparing a succinct and organized pitch that shows each stakeholder how a freshly designed website will specifically benefit them.

2) Establish a budget for your new website

Once you have convinced key stakeholders that your website needs to be redesigned, you need to outline a budget for the project. The most important thing you will need to do is to request a formal quotation from a trusted website design company. Remember to consider the costs of ongoing needs such as website maintenance and emergency support.

3) Gather high-resolution images to replace outdated photos

“Actionable images are call-to-action images, the kind that persuade a visitor take action. What you are ensuring is that your images play a tangible role on your site and don’t just improve its visual quotient.” – Jeff Davis, Website Magazine

Before you enlist the help of a professional website design firm, you can begin gathering any high-resolution photos you have for your site. Adding high-resolution images to your website will help you increase your conversion rate by bolstering user engagement and lowering your bounce rate. Professional images enable your customers to increase the size of your images to clearly see product features. Here are a few tips to make sure that you select the proper images for your website:

• Be thorough by taking multiple photos from different angles
• Include photos of people actively using your products or services
• Feature actionable images, or those that will propel your visitors to try your products or services

4) Clarify your goals and expectations

Outlining the top three things you would like for your website to accomplish for your business is important. For instance, perhaps you would like to increase your web leads by 50% and rank on the first page of Google when prospects conduct an online search for “International hospital financing.” Make sure you write down your goals and expectations so you can review them in detail.

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WHAT IS THE SINGLE BEST PATH TO A CUTTING-EDGE WEBSITE?

As outlined above, there are many reasons to update your website to prevent it from becoming a relic. However, the single best step you can take to ensure that your website does not look outdated is to seek the guidance of a leader in the website design industry. At Activator, we have the tools and expertise required to transform your outdated website and bolster customer confidence. We employ Activator Deep Analysis™, which is our detailed process of revamping a website. It is second to none and features the following measures:

• Ensure your website is mobile friendly, as nearly 60% of searches are made with mobile devices
• Screen for 404 issues and bad links
• Install Google Analytics  
• Replace any stock photos or poor quality images with high-resolution photos
• Conduct an in-depth keyword analysis to improve your SEO
• Maintain compliance with industry regulations by staying abreast of the latest website mandates
• Ramp up your website security to help prevent hackers from wreaking havoc on your site
• Freshen your website’s content to help your site rank well on Google

In addition to the specific items outlined above, you can enjoy the peace of mind that comes along with knowing your website is helping your organization achieve its goals as opposed to standing in the way of increased conversions and a stellar user experience.

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