How Your Old Web Design Negatively Affects Your Business.

Your website is your 24/7 sales manager. It’s a marketing beast. A guru. It never sleeps. It never gets sick. It never has a off day and then makes excuses why it’s lost it’s mojo.

But it can age. Quickly.

Updating your websites design is one of the most important aspects of digital marketing, but it can often be overlooked. By not updating your website’s design you run the risk of negatively affecting your business.

The impact that an outdated design can have on your brand and on conversion rates can be shocking.

Is your website repelling more visitors than it is attracting?

Does your web design look and feel outdated? What was once modern and fresh, now feels out of date – like your website’s style has gone completely out of fashion. And it doesn’t really matter if the graphic design elements are good; what matters is that they’re not new anymore (and you need to be new).

You don’t want to be ashamed when potential customers visit your site for the first time. The last thing you want people seeing on your site is something ugly or old looking (well, unless a retro look somehow speaks to how authentic your brand actually is!) But usually it’s better not to have things that scream ‘I’m not cool’ about them!

A typical website requires substantial updates to its platform, functionality, and design approximately every 3-5 years. Some sites can “get away with it” for longer, while others choose a more rapid redesign rate.

There are many good reasons to update your site’s design. These include:

A competitive advantage that speaks to your clients.

Your site might have great content, or offer valuable services. But if the design is unappealing and outdated, it won’t make visitors want to stick around very long (let alone come back again).

Compared to your competitors, you might look a little out of date. We all have the tendency to judge things quickly, even without meaning too. This means that some people might assume your website is simply not being updated anymore, that its information is not useful, or it just doesn’t match up to a more modern competitor.

Your competitors can outperform your website on many levels, including search engine ranking, conversions, and trust factors.

Make it easy for clients to find relevant information.

A new layout/design, combined with fresh content, imagery and engaging informative videos, supported by modern design elements and colour palettes can create a great first impression.

A clean fresh web design with obvious navigation can make it easier to use; easier to find relevant content.

Create trust.

If a competitor’s website looks newer or more appealing than yours already – many visitors will feel as though your site is not as trustworthy as theirs! Especially if your website is particularly old and outdated.

That first impression is important. Trust helps your clients feel secure, knowing that they’re in the right place.

Make clients feel secure.

If you have an old website, there’s a chance that its not secure. It may be built on an old platform, or that the CMS (Content Management Sydney) hasn’t been maintained and updated regularly. It may be that the CMS doesn’t have an upgrade path (short of a full rebuild). Hackers are on the lookout for websites that stray from the heard, you need to be vigilant and keep your website up to date.

A good user experience across devices.

Your website must be mobile-friendly and completely responsive. Since the release of the iPhone, the quest for mobile supremacy has resulted in mobile traffic now exceeding desktop. Google now ranks websites partly based on the mobile user experience.

If you have an old site that’s not mobile responsive, you could be missing out on traffic coming to your site, and traffic bouncing from your website when they do come.

A fast loading website.

Google advises that two seconds is an acceptable website page speed. While at Jimmyweb we try to always build fast websites, aiming for a half-second to one second on new sites that we build.

Your site’s performance must be optimised to its maximum potential. Long loading and processing delays will no longer be tolerated by users. You must strengthen your procedures, checkouts, and conversions to ensure fast, smooth transactions.

Search optimized website.

Outdated web designs can impact your SEO efforts. Make sure your website is built on a modern platform, has relevant content and an optimal design.

By updating your site’s design, not only will you meet the needs of today’s web users – but it could also lead to increased traffic, engagement, conversions and more!

Google focuses on delivering search results that are relevant to the user intent. If your website is not up to date and provides no value to the user, you will lose searches, business and revenue.

Future proof your website.

To ‘future-proof’ your brand, you must connect your assets and activities with the goal of future growth.

You are restricting your company’s capacity to swiftly adapt to changing technological trends, user experience, and losing customers to competition if you do not do so.

Businesses that re-evaluate their website on a regular basis and decide to update the current site, or even start from scratch might benefit from increased site speed, features, and functions that deliver a more personalised experience.

You are more likely to convert your leads, resulting in a higher ROI and more revenue. Make your 24/7 marketing manager a sales machine again!