Top 5 Reasons to Update Your Website

Today, we live in the age of the internet. Your website has become one of the most important tools for promoting your business. Be it a small business or a large enterprise, having a well-designed website has become imperative. However, just having a website isn’t enough. Your website can make or break your business, and it needs to be designed keeping modern-day standards and protocols in mind. Moreover, the preferences of the audience must be carefully managed too. If you already have a website, you need to ask yourself if it is doing the job efficiently or if is it time to consider an upgrade. The following 5 reasons will help you understand when you must take action.

Security: In today’s times, one of the most important aspects of your website is security. You need to analyze if your website has the latest security measures in place or not. With the passage of each day, there are newer security risks that we face. This need for security is even more profound for websites that accept customer payments. In this scenario, your old security measures will stand no chance of protecting you against those threats. If you aren’t sure how to analyze your website’s security we can offer you a web strategy consultation to review your current website to determine how you are doing. The good news is all of our websites are custom-built with top security in mind using the best tools to prevent, monitor, and counteract cyber attacks.

Mobile Optimization: A great majority of internet traffic today is coming from a range of mobile platforms. By not having a mobile-friendly website, you are failing to cater to much of your current and/or potential internet traffic. Moreover, it is important to note that your desktop website can’t do the same job on mobile phones. Mobile users want information quickly and at their fingertips. An expert website designer has to carefully create a sound mobile experience. Ultimately, having a well-crafted, mobile-friendly website is a must. Not sure if your site is Mobile Friendly? Be sure to take this free Google Mobile-Friendly test.

Ease of Communication: What happens if your customers have to contact you? Can they do so through your website? Evaluate your contact forms to see if they capture all the desired information. Moreover, it shouldn’t be too detailed so as to make your customers shy away from giving you the information. You want your contact forms to capture the most essential information for your team to get back to the customer. You also want to set up auto-responder emails to let them know you have received their message. Additionally, you need to let your customers be able to contact you via your social media accounts. Some companies also offer "request an appointment" integrations that tie directly into your personal calendar so customers can book a real-time appointment with you right away. If you need to improve your conversion optimization we can help!

SEO: SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. As the name suggests, SEO is a technique used to optimize your website for Search Engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. Your website needs to be SEO-friendly in order for such search engines to place it in their search rankings. Moreover, this can also help with improving your overall ranking in Search Results. The higher you are in the search results, the more the probability of your website being clicked. There’s a lot of work that goes into a website being SEO optimized. Developers have to look into page speeds, keyword optimization of content, website codes, and more. Most importantly website companies need to do on-page Search Engine Optimization when they first build the site.

Website Speed: Finally, website page load times also are a critical aspect of your website’s performance and customer conversion. If your website takes too long to load, there are chances that your customers will drop out or at least start with a bad impression of your business. These days, your websites are expected to load in 1.8 to 2.7 seconds. Any delay can hurt your conversions. If your website takes too long to load, you need to contact a professional website development company today to consider an upgrade. More importantly, Google is now requiring sites to load within 3-5 seconds to continue being shown on mobile searches. You can use this Google Mobile speed test to see your results.

Need help with your Web Strategy? We offer a web strategy consultation to provide you with a plan of action. You may also request a consultation and live website review to help you identify the exact areas of your marketing plan that need improvement. Web Strategy Plus provides a "one-stop shop" full-service digital marketing agency where all of your marketing efforts are tied together to drive more leads to your business.

Originally, this article was first posted on the Web Strategy Plus blog.

I am Michelle Hummel, a passionate internet marketer with an internet marketing degree and 15+ years of successful online marketing experience. I am the owner of WebStrategyPlus.com - web design, web development and digital marketing company