“Caring for your business’s website is like caring for your home — you must be vigilant and provide ongoing support because, to outsiders, it is a reflection of the person inside”.
What does your website say about your company? Have you ignored it and watched as the digital weeds have begun to pile up? Here are just a few of the telltale signs to make you aware that it’s time to give your website a complete makeover.
1. No social-sharing functionality
Social media dominates the web now, and if your website doesn’t feature basic sharing buttons for sites like Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and more, it’s seriously lacking.
No longer do people rely on the Yellow Pages to find a good interior decorator — they browse search engines and solicit advice from friends by posting to their walls. You never know — a blog post shared by a fan of your business could generate leads, or, at the very least, boost traffic to your site.
2. Your business has changed
Businesses evolve over time and your website needs to reflect those changes.
If you’ve added a product or service to your offerings, but don’t add it to your website, how much potential revenue are you missing out on?
Creating new service pages and adding keywords on your site can help boost your ranking on search engine results pages — and an update from an old static site to a new content management system can give you the flexibility to change it yourself in the future.
3. Not accounting for mobile browsers
How quickly do things change? The iPad didn’t even exist three years ago and the first iPhone was released in 2007. Now, mobile web browsing accounts for almost 10% of all web traffic in the United States today and, according to the data, it’s up over 70% from 2010 to 2012. Many experts believe that in less than five years, mobile usage will eclipse desktop internet browsing.
Older websites are not prepared to handle the demands of the mobile user, who expect simplicity. Now is the time to get your website redesigned or optimized with mobile responsive in mind.
4. It’s loaded with outdated features
They say, “Never judge a book by its cover.” By now, we all know that this is not the case — first impressions, especially in the business world, make a huge difference. Page view counters, links to MySpace pages, old fonts, gimmicky sidebar widgets, the lack of a contact form — all of these give the impression that your company, like your website, is outdated, out of touch and unprofessional.
Consider these four essential steps to bring your business website into the 21st century. Hope this post has been some help for you, thanks for reading.
Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/seoplanter/
About The Author
Gerald Ford is passionate writer who loves to write useful articles on SEO and Internet marketing tips. He would like to invite you to find out more about his company over at clickoptimize.com