The following is a guest contributed post from Laura McGarrity, VP of Digital Strategy at MondoLabs.
As every expert in the industry knows, having a successful and effective online presence has never been more important. Businesses that lack an impressive, user-friendly website risk falling behind more advanced, forward-thinking businesses.
Your website is your customer’s first glimpse at what your business offers, so you can’t afford to make a bad impression. If you’re concerned about the current performance of your website, read on to learn four clear signs that you are in desperate need of a new website:
- Built Without the UX in Mind
A positive User Experience (UX) is a major component of a successful website. An outdated website that lacks innovative and interactive design elements will not gain traction with consumers due to the poor UX this results in.
If your website was built without the user in mind, then it’s extremely likely it needs to be redone. If navigating your website internally is a nightmare, what makes you think users will feel differently?
Everything from the layout of the website to page loading speeds to the aesthetic value are things that affect the UX. Build your new website with these elements in mind and prioritize an enjoyable UX to boost traffic to your site, as well as conversions.
- Lacks Mobile Optimization
Today, having your business website optimized for mobile is no longer optional. In 2015, for the first time ever, the number of searches on mobile devices surpassed desktop searches. Which means more consumers are switching to their mobile devices to conduct searches and shop for products. According to ReachLocal, 74 percent of users said they are more likely to revisit a mobile-friendly website.
If your website is not mobile-friendly then you automatically risk losing a growing group of consumers to a competitor whose website is. Mobile optimization also affects your search engine ranking since Google has updated it’s algorithm to prioritize responsive sites, meaning non-responsive sites are buried deep in search results pages most consumers never get to.
- Updates Are Costly and Inefficient
Older websites are often a nightmare to update due to the framework that was created for them initially. If your content currently lives outside a Content Management System (CMS), then you’re doing it wrong and costing your business money, which affects the ROI of your website.
Working outside a CMS framework requires a Developer for every single product, service, or content update for your website which is costly and inefficient for long-term goals, like increased, quality content production.
Incorporating a CMS allows you to keep your content fresh and update it on the fly, thus enhancing the SEO ranking of your website, while minimizing the outsourcing or internal costs associated with employing a Developer to maintain and update the site.
- Search Engine Ranking is Poor
To have a successful website, it needs to be easily found. If your website is not ranking on search engines, then it’s likely your customers are being navigated to competitors who have optimized their websites for search engines.
Your SEO strategy needs to focus on areas besides just keyword targeting, since search engines evaluate various elements of a website to determine ranking, like page loading speeds, social signals, responsiveness, and, you guessed it, the quality of the content found on your website.
For your new website, you should focus efforts on creating quality content that touches on the pain points of your consumers, while continuously updating and adding fresh content via the CMS to help elevate your search engine ranking.
Creating a new website may seem like a hefty expense initially, but when you consider how much business your current website is costing you, you really can’t afford to put it off any longer. If your website has one or more of these issues, or if it’s older than five years, then it’s time to prioritize building a new website.
