Four Telltale Signs Your Website Needs A Major Overhaul

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“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.

Is your website optimized for mobile browsing?

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 It’s loaded with outdated features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

  • http://www.magnet4marketing.net Fabrizio Van Marciano

    Great post Gerald, for me I think it’s imperative that a website is optimized for mobile browsing and incorporated social sharing tools.

  • Samantha Wright

    Hi Gerald, you made some great points here. Mobile browsing is big business and I think if your business website isn’t ready for it then you could be missing the boat completely. I read somewhere that 25% of mobile web traffic in the US is generated from the iPad.

    • http://www.magnet4marketing.net Fabrizio Van Marciano

      That doesn’t surprise me one bit, I’d say that when I’m not at the desk I spend the majority of my time browsing the web on my iphone or ipad. Mainly because it’s so much more convenient.

  • http://www.rancorinfotech.com Aditya

    Hi Gerald,
    You have mentioned admirable points here.Technology has unfolded new dimensions and we have to build our websites which is adaptable for mobile browsing also.lots of corporates and businessmen have moved to smart phones or iphones and they keep browsing with them.To reach on every corner of the world we have to make changes to our websites as well and be up to date with the technology.

    • Bhushan

      Hi Adi,
      Very well determination said by you on this subject.
      GOING VERY WELL and keep it up buddy.

  • Bhushan

    Hi Gerald,
    I know I don’t get by here often enough but I always enjoy these types of posts. You’re giving us some great scoop on different topics and I for one find these fun.

    I love your blog. Great insights, content and inspiration.

  • http://antonkoekemoer.com/Digital-Marketing/ Anton Koekemoer

    Hi Gerald,

    Yes – I do agree. Using outdated features and an age old theme are two of the most visible signs that your blogs needs some work from a design and user interface point of view. Like as you’ve mentioned social buttons and the ability to share content easily on social media and bookmarking channels is an important part of the user experience and helps with increasing the exposure your blog or website will generate in terms of being visible in social networks and Search engines alike.

  • http://carpetcleaninginperth.net.au/ Becca

    No wonder because more and more people prefer using mobile when browsing in the internet.
    That is an awesome post. You have really layed out your points in great detail.

  • http://freepsdsource.com/ ayesha

    Very useful tactics are discussed above. Young generation mostly uses mobile internet. It’s really very enjoyable. fascinating post!!

  • Gerald Ford

    Now a website should have sharing buttons. Web pages should be upgraded regularly so that people come across with the changes your business is making regularly. Now websites should consider the mobile reader. Smart phones taking place of laptop. So every website should have a mobile friendly version.