Many businesses have a “set it and forget it” attitude about their websites, especially if they don’t have a blog. Having a website is a great start to an effective online presence and there are a few easy ways to make sure it’s bringing you the best results. But when your basic business information doesn’t change, it can be hard to see how a website refresh could be helpful. If the business hasn’t changed, why should the website? The answer is that websites are about more than the information that they provide. How functional is your site? How many people are actually reading the information that you have, anyway? Let’s take a look at four huge signs that it’s time to freshen up your website.
- Your Bounce Rate is too High or Your Conversions are too Low
If you have enough traffic coming to your site, then you’ll be able to check your Google Analytics to see how quickly visitors are leaving your page (bounce rate) and what percentage of them are opting into an offer that you have or a contact form (conversion rate).If they’re leaving too quickly that’s a strong sign that the user experience is poor or that your site is unimpressive overall. Either way, visitors not staying long enough to learn about your business and that’s a problem. Low conversion rates are also a sign that your offer wasn’t good enough or that it was too difficult to find. Solve these issues by making sure your site has a clean, easy-to-understand layout with a prominent and tantalizing offer. The following signs are also things that you can look at in order to update your user-experience and keep visitors on your site. - Your Site Loads Slowly or Isn’t Optimized for Mobile Devices
Google knows that most users are viewing sites on their mobile devices and will take that into account when ranking yours. Take a look at your site on your phone- is it easy to find the menu button and navigate? Where is the most important information listed? Is the text and image formatting streamlined or does it look like a jigsaw puzzle? If your site looks bad on mobile, you absolutely need to update it. Whether on mobile or desktop, no visitor wants to wait for your huge media files to upload, no matter how impressive they are. If your site is S L O W, it may be a quick fix, such as compressing your media files (Find a great WordPress Plugin for that here) or paring down on how much you have on your site. - Your WordPress Theme, Plugins, or PHP are Outdated
Site maintenance is important for security reasons. Business owners who follow the “set it and forget it” strategy may find themselves in trouble when they don’t keep up with updates. Outdated tools can have issues with no longer being supported, which affects site functionality. Worse still, each outdated piece is a potential entryway for your site to be hacked. Hacked sites are huge issues for several reasons, but if Google deems your site as unsafe, they will stop letting visitors into your site and may even remove you from the search results altogether. Check your site frequently and update as soon as they are made available. - Your Content is Bad
Your site doesn’t just tell visitors about your business, it can convert them into customers. At least, it can if it’s written correctly. Website content can suffer from several issues ranging from simple typos to jargon-filled lectures to being flat-out boring. When writing your site content, it’s important to keep your audience in mind. They have a problem that needs fixed or a desire to fulfill and your focus should be on that, not on yourself. Make sure you’re getting to your point quickly and include social proof like testimonials to show them how you are the solution to what your visitor needs. Don’t make them work to understand what you’re trying to say or sell. Be clear, concise, and interesting. If your website is not performing the way you’d like, check these four aspects to see how it can be improved. This is your best opportunity to shine online and shouldn’t be taken lightly. Remember that how well your site functions, is just as important as the content you have, if not more. No one is going to stay and read what you have to say if the site isn’t loading or working for them. And no one is going to convert from visitor to customer if your content confuses them or puts them to sleep. Keep that in mind as you make these important updates, and maybe even take a look at your competitors’ sites for inspiration (or a cautionary tale!). Another great step is to see how you are doing in Google Search Console.
Not sure what steps to take next with your website? Sounds like it’s time to set up a complementary strategy session so you can hit the ground running.
