Through the process of marketing your business, you may develop a wide array of assets, ranging from blog posts to social media feeds to YouTube videos. The hub around which all of these other assets orbit is your business website. Indeed, one of the primary directives of any marketing campaign is to funnel traffic to the website, where you can further educate, qualify, and convert your audience into paying customers.
As such, having a well-designed website is critical. Not only should business owners invest in expert website development, but they should also be attuned to the signs that their website needs an update.
Top Reasons to Update Your Website
So what are some of the primary reasons to overhaul your business website? Here are just a few of the most common ones.
Improve Site Speed
Website loading speed is a crucial performance indicator. The reality is that most consumers have little time or patience to wait for a cumbersome or graphic-heavy website to load, and if your site takes more than three or four seconds, you may be losing visitors. Tellingly, Google’s algorithms take site speed into consideration for SEO rankings, a clear sign that this is a matter of real importance to website users. The bottom line is that if you have a site that’s slow to load, updating it to something sleek and efficient is never a bad idea.
Reflect Changes to Google
We mentioned the Google search algorithms. Did you know that Google changes its algorithms on a regular basis, unrolling many small updates and a couple of more significant ones during the course of any given year? These updates are generally designed to promote high-quality, relevant content, which sometimes means penalizing sites that rely too heavily on outdated SEO methods (like keyword stuffing). One of the top reasons to update your website is to ensure it’s designed from the ground up with SEO in mind, based on the latest recommendations from Google’s search engineers.
Update for Mobile
Every year, statistics confirm that more and more Internet browsing shifts from laptops and desktops to mobile devices. This shift has become so pronounced that Google now recommends having a mobile-first ethos; that is, considering the mobile version of your site to be primary. If your website has not been updated for mobile-first design, it will probably be pretty obvious: Simply see what the site looks like on a smartphone, and if it’s difficult to read or to navigate then it’s time for an update.
Add Calls to Action
Your website should help you attain better search visibility, but that’s hardly its only function. A good website also acts as a 24/7 sales machine, informing potential customers and directing them further down their consumer journey. In light of this, a good website will have potent calls to action, smartly-worded and strategically placed throughout the site. If your website hasn’t been designed with strong calls to action, it may be past time to get an update.
Enhance Aesthetics
Styles change, and what may have looked like a truly cutting-edge website in 2009 can appear badly out of date today. This matters for reasons that go far beyond taste or preference; simply put, the aesthetics of your website serve as a reflection of your professionalism, your savvy, and your attention to detail. If you have a site that looks behind the times, or that is reliant on old stock photos and other dated elements, it may be time to give it a fresh coat of paint.
Augment Content
The content on your website matters a great deal; in this category we’re including written elements as well as things like videos and infographics. Content helps keep users on the page, inform them about your business, and prepare them to buy a product or schedule an appointment. If your content is poorly written, out of date, or just not as precise as it could be, you may wish to consider some website improvements.
Include Analytics
How can you tell when you have a truly effective website? Hopefully, you have a dashboard and analytics in place to help you measure things like conversion rates, bounce rates, and beyond. And if you don’t have those measurement tools in place, that’s reason enough to upgrade with some necessary behind-the-scenes changes.
Speak with our Web Design team at enCOMPASS Agency
At enCOMPASS, our approach to website design is always informed by strategy. We don’t only want to give your website a pretty face, but rather we want to ensure that it’s perfectly synced with SEO strategies, social media, email marketing, and other marketing collateral to drive optimal results.
We’d love to speak with you further about our approach, and to answer any questions you may have about your website design. To start the conversation, reach out to enCOMPASS any time.
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