A good business website needs to be regularly tended and kept up-to-date. This is important for several reasons including user experience, SEO, and your brand image. The internet moves quickly and leaving your website to stagnate will negatively affect your business’s credibility and the site’s effectiveness.
High bounce rate
Traffic doesn’t equal conversion. If your lead numbers are low despite a healthy number of users, this could be an indicator of problems that an update could rectify. A high bounce rate could indicate a lack of engagement with your audience, which could mean your content isn’t interesting or relevant, or your landing pages are attracting the wrong kind of traffic.
Time-on-page statistics are low
A high bounce rate is just one indicator that your pages aren’t engaging. If traffic is arriving but leaving in a hurry, it could mean that your content isn’t what people are looking for. You should look at what key words you are ranking for and see if your site is relevant to the search queries.
It lacks functionality
Online shopping is big business and trying to sell without offering a fully functional site is an uphill battle. There are many eCommerce platforms that provide a seamless way to sell your products and require very little technical knowledge to create an effective storefront. Expecting visitors to browse, then email their order or phone it in adds another step to the process and will negatively impact your conversion rate.
Out of date content
Advertising moves fast and the internet moves faster. From a SEO perspective, Google and other search engines don’t look favourable upon old, dated content as it is less relevant than that which is recent and up to date. Additionally, users will be put off by a site that is advertising promotions or news that is years, months, or even weeks out of date.
It isn’t responsive
Mobile browsing and shopping is becoming the norm, with people buying things everywhere they take their smartphones and tablets. If your site is still stuck in desktop mode then it is time to upgrade. The majority of CMSs provide mobile-responsiveness as a standard feature, making it easy to keep your website available on all devices.
You’re embarrassed by your own website
The simplest sign of whether your business site needs to be updated is whether you are proud to direct people to it. If you’re reluctant to talk about your internet presence, then you should look at improving your online image with an update, or an entirely new site.
