Signs it Might Be Time to Update Your Website
February 27, 2017 | By Jeff | In Tips & Advice
That old clunker has served you well in the past, but just like an old car, websites need upgrading and updating as well. The reality is, technologies change, user behaviors change, standards and practices change. There are lots of things that change as time goes by and what once was new is now old. First impressions are important, and if your website looks ugly and outdated, it could cost you potential clients. Here are a few telltale signs that it’s time to trade in that old hatchback for a hybrid:
1. Your Website Is Using Old & Outdated Technologies
It may have been the latest and greatest standard when your website was built, but when you’re scouring the web to find a coldfusion developer, or still touting that flash landing page, it’s time to update. These are technologies and languages that just aren’t the standard anymore. Take Flash for example. It was the hottest thing in the late 90s and early 2000s, but now many browsers don’t even support it anymore. Most websites today forego the bulky flash animations and use much more lightweight languages like javascript and css to handle animations and interactivity. Adopt these new technologies to make your website more standard friendly.
2. It’s A Military Operation Every Time You Need To Update Content
If you’re not using a content management system, I’m sure it’s been a very difficult and inconvenient process any time you need to update any type of information on your website. First you have to write the new html code, make sure you typed everything in correctly, remember your ftp password to upload the new files. If you don’t know how to do those things, then you have to hire a developer every time you want to change a few paragraphs here and there. Wouldn’t you rather just be able to log into an admin area, change some text in some form fields, and be done with it without having to juggle files and folders? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
3. Your Website Isn’t Mobile Friendly
A majority of users now rely solely on their smartphone or tablet to browse the web. This is bad for you if your website isn’t optimized for mobile responsive design. You’re turning away potential customers if they come to your site and end up having to zoom, pan and squint because your content isn’t optimized for mobile devices. To make it even worse, Google now imposes a search results penalty for sites that aren’t mobile responsive. It might be a good idea to modernize.
4. Your Website Looks Like It Was Made From A Template
Unsightly system fonts, irrelevant stock photos and background images, a call to action that’s buried or missing, and a theme or layout that just doesn’t match your business or target audience are signs that you just wanted to DIY and be done with it. While DIY sites like WIX or Squarespace are fine if you just need to get a quick and dirty website up in a short amount of time, it’s not very flattering for your business reputation if the impression that you give off is you just don’t care. “What else is this company careless about?”, visitors may be thinking. You really should hire a professional if you want to get away from that “cookie cutter” look.
5. Your Website Is Still Using Tables For Layouts
Tables were meant for one thing, and that’s to display data. Somehow the web development community adopted tables as the standard for layout in the early days. Thankfully they smartened up and today this is a big “No No”. Not only is it harder for search engines to crawl your content, but also makes styling things through css and mobile responsiveness a great difficulty. Ditch the tables and move to div and semantic html 5 elements.
6. You’re Not Engaging With Your Customers
Just about every web presence these days has a blog, a facebook, a twitter, or at least one of these. At the very least, you should have a Facebook or Twitter profile for your business that is updated on a regular basis with news of some sort. Link to that profile from your website. You don’t have to have a blog if you don’t want one, but it certainly helps in keeping your content fresh and updated. (Google likes that kind of stuff and helps with search results when you have fresh content).
These are just a few warning signs that your old jalopy is destined for the junk yard. If you know that you need a new website but are feeling a bit overwhelmed with the amount of information or work that would be involved, Contact Me for a free consultation. Deimos Designs provides web design in Monmouth County NJ and Nationwide.
Deimos Designs is a Monmouth County NJ SEO & web design company. If you'd like a free consultation, click here.
