Websites are like many things in life such as cars, appliances, clothes or eyeglasses. They wear out, break down or are no longer in style. Let’s face it, anything that is man-made will eventually get old, lose value or simply stop working.
Websites are no different, in fact most websites began to lose value after 4-5 years of existence. Why is that? Primarily because of constant technology changes, but also because of a stale look, old information and images, cumbersome navigation and lastly lost revenue.
Let’s examine these factors further. Everyone knows that technology constantly changes. When it comes to websites, major changes have occurred in the last few years such as responsive design meaning your website is able to be easily viewed on any size electronic device such as desktop computers, smart phones and tablets. In the last couple of years, Google has changed the way it index websites meaning that if your site is not responsive it will lose rankings even if your site has been around for years. With the huge number of smartphones owners most people surf the web on their phones everyday and if your website is not responsive they will most likely leave it giving you a large bounce rate.
Also when features of your website is old such as the look, navigation and info, this will cause loyal visitors not to be as loyal because they see you are not interested in staying abreast with changes. For business owners this can be worst for new or prospective clients that you are trying to win their business. Since they do not have a lasting relationship with you, they simply may not spend much time on your site if the information is not informative, fresh or find it hard to navigate.
There also can be security and performance concerns when you have an old site. If you don’t have security measures in place such as virus protection or backup methods your site can be subject to being hacked or slow down the page load speed.
Lost of revenue. Why did you investment in getting a website in the first place, to market your brand online and generate revenue. If your website is suffering with high bounce rates and frustrated visitors because of the above factors mentioned you will inevitably lose visitors which could cost you loss revenue.
I understand there are barriers that prevent a lot of people, especially business owners from redesigning their site such as cost, don’t have the time or simply undervaluing their website. Though these are common reasons, I urge any website owner to take a good look at their website if it is beyond five years old and put it to the test of some of the things I mentioned and determine if its time to get a new website. The return on your investment will pay off sooner than later.
If you are ready to get your website redesigned please contact us today.
