Your website requires constant work to keep it online for your customers. You may not notice how much work it takes if you initially hired a web development company to build the website for you.

Over time, websites do need updates, ranging from standard security updates to a complete redesign for an evolving search ecosystem. Ask yourself:

Do you know the warning signs to look for when your website becomes outdated?

There are many things to manage when running a website — from creating fresh content and updating blog posts, changing contact information, paying for hosting, and managing integrations such as an ecommerce store or live chat module. Handling all of these aspects on your own can be a challenge, and isn’t often the best choice for small business owners.

Today, we’ll take a look at a few of the best ways to know if your site is outdated, and what you can do to remedy the situation.

1. User Experience Issues

User experience is one of the most vital aspects of your website. If a customer has a bad experience, they simply will not come back and will be more likely to tell others about how you failed them. Responsive design, or the ability for a web page to render properly on different screen sizes and devices automatically, is critical since 92.6% of all Internet users access websites via mobile devices. You can determine whether your design works for your audience by checking your user analytics and bounce rate.

Design Functionality

The days of all text-based websites are gone, replaced by different forms of media such as videos, infographics, and images that relate to your brand or overall message. Your website design should be functional, with clear navigation and images that hold the users’ attention. Treat your website as a journey with a clear beginning and endpoint. As part of the design, ensure that the web page loads fast — the days of dial-up internet are behind us.

Lack of Conversions

If your website looks and feels outdated, you’ll see an apparent lack of conversions and a high bounce rate. With the amount of competition for most products and services available worldwide, you must cater to your audience and continuously keep current with consumer trends and even updated technology within your sector. Updated websites, social media profiles, and blogs also show consumers that you are available and still in business.

2. Outdated Content

Maybe your message or business goals changed, but if your content still reflects previous messaging, it’s outdated. Branding should be up to date, as should the products and services available. If customers come to you needing a service that you do not offer but have listed, they will feel slighted. You should always have a current content strategy to help you maintain your search engine ranking so that your audience can find you.

Poor Search Engine Traffic

Poor search ranking from Google results in your website falling far behind in search results. If you haven’t updated your content for how Google ranks web pages in the past three years or so, it’s likely why your website isn’t visible. Search engine optimisation (SEO) now is less about the number of keywords you shove into each article and more about the quality and readability of the content.

3. Incompatibility with Browsers and Plugins

Over time, websites become incompatible with web browsers due to changes in technology or changes in coding standards, leaving the website unavailable or broken. In addition to this, plugins fail to function appropriately if not updated. Both of these issues are enough to drive potential customers away and degrade your website’s Google ranking. Remember that a broken website costs you time and money.

4. Security Problems

An outdated website is a risk for hacking due to the lack of updated security plugins and current data security practises. Depending on your hosting provider and what types of plugins you use, your web page might need updates multiple times per year. Another potential security issue is your administrative password, which you should change regularly. Not maintaining the bare minimum security for your customers’ data will have negative consequences.

Far-Reaching Consequences

If your customers’ private information (PI) becomes compromised by hackers, you will face several possible consequences. The main consequence you’d endure is the loss of trust from current and potential customers, which often results in irreparable damage to your brand image. There might be negative press, especially within your local community. You also may face legal consequences depending on the type of data you keep and how you store it.

Make Your Site’s User Experience Work for You

Minx Digital is a boutique web agency that prides itself on digital marketing and WordPress web development that looks good and is technically awesome!

Whilst you can use your marketing budget on paid advertisements and spend all day every day on social media, that can be an expensive, time-consuming route that does not necessarily bring the kind of web traffic you desire.

There are countless marketing tactics and strategies out there all claiming to give you overnight success, but it’s all BS. These “gurus” are trying to sell you into the dream that digital space is easy. It’s not! It takes a lot of hard work.

Work with us and turn your ideas into a more elevated and profitable business with the power of SEO, SEM and SMM. Contact us today to learn how we can get you the traffic you need to help your business grow and thrive.