Why is it important to update your website?
For many of us, refreshing our website is always one project which is on the to do list but put on the back burner. What you may not realize, is that updating your website will have huge benefits. And the good news is providing you have access to your site, and it is built in a platform that allows you to update it easily, it needn’t cost you any money.
It is so important to update your website. Research indicates that 57% of online users won’t recommend a business with a poorly designed website and 75% of consumers admit to making judgements about a company’s credibility based on their website.
Your website is your ultimate shop window. And it represents your brand. So, you need to continually invest in it, just like you would with other types of your marketing and social media.
Not only will updating your website help with your SEO, but you also need to check your content and offering are still relevant. Some simple updates will breathe a new lease of life into your website and will have a huge number of benefits.
When was the last time you read every page of your website? I guarantee when you start reading it, there will be so many things you spot that can be updated. And no doubt your business has changed and you’ll have many achievements to talk about. Don’t shy away and hide these things. You need to shout about them. This could be anything from client wins and awards and accreditations.
It is also a chance to ensure your brand is represented in the right away. As mentioned every business naturally evolves, and so does your brand. Your visual style is likely to change over a period of time, as well as your tone of voice. There could be some simple things you can do from changing some of the language and vocabulary, to changing the color scheme.
5 Signs Your Company Needs a Website Refresh
Content is Out of Date
Think back to when the last time your business’s website was edited. Has it been five or more years? It’s time for a refresh. The field of web development is consistently changing and upgrading the world wide web to become more modern, concise, and user-friendly. If there’s an attachment to the current website, try browsing competitors and compare your website to the clean and responsive layouts of modern websites. So many more factors come into play than just a visually aesthetic design, such as its capability to expand and update outdated content. A developer will do this by focusing on how the current strategic marketing plan will influence a site redesign by adding content that reflects how you communicate with all users in a visually pleasing way. Most often, look for a developer that uses a WordPress theme that’s customizable and editable without the need for advanced coding knowledge. Having the confidence within your team to be able to edit small sections of the website content, while knowing the overall design won’t be impacted, is a great way to keep content fresh and reliable.
No Value Proposition
As business leaders, it takes time and expertise to come up with vision and mission statements and their benefits to keeping the team on a collective track to success are bountiful. Successful website content is inspired by supporting a set value proposition that should relate to both statements as a way to describe why your business is the best choice. Any user should be able to identify a specific key message or trait about your business after visiting the website. Consistent and unique copywriting is required in order to help reinforce this message to users so that they leave with no doubt about what your business is all about. Design also plays a role in conveying the value of the message through graphics that communicate effectively within an interface that is responsive, fast, and user-friendly. Get your team together and answer these four questions about your website in order to evaluate your unique value proposition:
- What is this company/webpage?
- When I’m on this website, what am I able to do?
- Does this website help solve any problems for me?
- Why should I choose this company/website over any others to solve my problems?
The Bounce Rate Is High
The bounce rate of a website measures the percentage of interaction on a single-page before a user came and left without interacting on the site. This could measure both fresh new users or examine how existing users interact with webpages over a period of time. It’s important to notice trends in high bounce rates, which is an indication that users are either becoming overwhelmed, or the website failed to provide the information they were looking for. Poor usability in on any webpage can be detrimental as on average a “website’s bounce rate is 45%.” An ideal goal is to aim for is under 40% by giving your website a refresh and giving more attention to the homepage. Increasing relevant content will keep users intrigued and creates educational value, but a lack of an effective web interface will result in poor user experience.
Ineffective Calls to Action
Looking more in depth at the homepage, it should include effective calls to action (CTA’s) that help move users down the business funnel. The most effective CTA should live on the top of the homepage above the fold, so a user is introduced to make the particular action without having to scroll if necessary.
Although there can be a plethora of useful CTA’s, the most popular include awareness CTA’s, consideration CTA’s, and decision CTA’s.
- Awareness CTAs– These calls to action should link to a landing page offering a piece of content that helps your website visitor gain more information on a certain topic. Examples of awareness pieces of content are ebooks and white papers.
- Consideration CTAs– These CTAs link to pieces of content that help solve problems that your website visitors have already defined. Examples of consideration pieces of content are testimonials and case studies.
- Decision CTAs– Decision CTAs link to something such as a demo or a free trial of a product or service. Website visitors who have already decided on a solution strategy to their problems are trying to narrow down their list of vendors; decision CTAs highlight how you can help.
Depending on your message, it can be valuable to use multiple types of CTA’s, however, we recommend keeping it down to two. If the homepage contains multiple sections of content, contrast can be added to the CTA’s by using brand accent colors. Once there is confidence in funneling with CTA’s on the homepage, you can continue to add them to your content on other relevant webpages so that you’re always allowing users to act.
It’s Not Responsive
In the modern age of web development, it’s important that your website layout can adapt to any device a user may be browsing on. For example, a positive experience when browsing on a Google Pixel phone means that users will not have to worry about altering their screen in order to view any website content such as text or images. There are still many outdated websites that were developed with a fixed-width layout, meaning that content is coded based on not having to worry about the effects of multiple screen sizes. Any current website that includes separate coding to make up for a lack of responsive layouts may end up being double the cost, and hard to keep content updates continuous on each screen size. Instead, it’s recommended that a new website is developed using a mobile-first approach that will ensure that the rising rate of mobile website users don’t miss any bit of content. In fact, Google continues to push forward new initiatives to penalize businesses that don’t include a fully responsive mobile experience, especially when “52% of all website traffic comes from mobile devices, and Google is now basing its rankings on the mobile version of a website.”
