A website is one of the best assets that any business can own. It acts as a 24-hour salesman which can help your business generate leads and sales even when you are sleeping. In fact, some businesses only operate through a website, not needing a storefront. This saves a lot of fixed costs in renting a storefront or even manpower costs. The benefits of owning a website cannot be understated and this is why all businesses in the 21st century must have a website in order to succeed.

While there are a lot of existing businesses that own a website, not all websites are created equal. At Proximacy, we have seen countless of businesses with websites that were built in the early 2000s that have become obsolete. While it was beneficial to be an early adopter of websites in the early 2000s, websites need to be constantly upgraded to ensure that it is in line with today’s mobile and desktop requirements. A lot of these old websites are not mobile friendly and they have outdated pictures, media, and layouts. This can be detrimental to your business reputation especially if a potential client is looking for a business that takes pride in their digital assets such as a website or social media domains. In this post, we will take a look at the clear signs that you need a new website in order to stay relevant in today’s ever-changing digital landscape.

Mobile Friendly Site

More than 50% of today’s users only have a mobile phone as their device and it is not surprising to see why. Mobile phones have become an all-in-one device that almost all people own and it is easy to browse the internet with that device. A recent report from Hitwise on the mobile users in the US found that more than 50% of search queries are coming from mobile devices throughout all niches and categories. This finding alone is sufficient to tell you the impact a mobile-friendly site has in today’s landscape. A mobile-friendly site has the following characteristics throughout all its pages.

Responsive Design

Having a responsive design is an important aspect when it comes to website design. Screens come in many different sizes and having a responsive design ensures that web pages render and load perfectly no matter what screen size the person is using. It also means automatically detecting when a person is using a mobile device so that the font, call to action buttons and media elements are tailored to a mobile view.

Fast Loading Speed

In today’s blazing fast fiber optic connection. Users are more demanding on the loading speed of websites. A research from Google also found that websites stand to lose 10% of visitors for every second that a website takes to load. In addition, some people are still not able to achieve fast internet speeds due to their location. As such, it is important to ensure that your website loads fast and uses less than 2mb of data to load. Another method that you can use to achieve blazing fast speeds is to use Google Pagespeed insights and other tools to improve your website’s loading speed or to use Accelerated Mobile Pages, a initiative by Google that makes it easy for web developers to create near instant loading pages for their websites.

Legible Font and Buttons

Ever visited a website and found problems clicking certain buttons or text because of the size of the font? Ensuring that your font and buttons are legible and touch-friendly is an important aspect for a mobile-friendly site. Always make sure that you test and test your design so that it is responsive and garner the click that you want from your visitor.

Cross-Platform Integration

Customers are always looking for alternative means to find the things or service that they want. Whether is it a review, directions to your store or to find out what other people are saying about your business. It is always important to integrate multiple platforms into one seamless experience for your users. Whether is it adding a link for users to share your post on Facebook, allowing Google to capture your address so it can use Google Maps to direct the customer to you. Or using Google my business to find out your operating hours and the reviews about your business. Remember that there is no one methods that works online. Always distribute your eggs (digital resources) into multiple baskets (YouTube,  Facebook, Google). And lastly, always track your website so that you know where all your traffic is coming from. One free tool I use extensively is Google Analytics.

Location Grabbing

For businesses with a store front or requires customers to go to you. This should be on the top of your list. Integrating Google Maps should be a must for you. Using Google’s API for navigation is a good start so that Google can easily grab your potential customer’s location and lead them to you. As such, it is also important to put your business on Google My Business for the most exposure.

Application Experience

Most visitors using a mobile device to conduct a search usually achieve a specific task. As such, a good mobile application is one that allows your visitors to accomplish the most used feature of your website through a seamless experience. For example, Amazon’s website to track your packages, order items and to configure your account settings. Likewise, your website should emulate the best features of your desktop view. This means amplifying the aspects that the customer uses the most and make it stand out. Most websites today can emulate that of an application. Make sure that your website is properly optimised so that visitors can get what they want quickly.

Low-Quality Media

Ever clicked on a website and was greeted by a picture that was taken with a potato? I know I have. The quality of media elements has come a long way since the early 2000s. A well-optimised image below 1mb can look the same as a 5mb photo and a high-quality photo that was taken in the early 2000s now is visually wose worse than a photo taken with an iPhone. The practices and norms of today’s websites are much different than the standards of an old website. If you are still using a website that was built in the early 2000s. Perhaps its time to engage someone to redesign your website.

Broken Websites

Broken websites happen when a website using a platform such as WordPress, Adobe Dreamweaver, or other similar platforms is not updated regularly to support the current standards of a website. What happens is a website will lose its compatibility and as a result, cause the formats or certain functions to not work. Other scenarios include a user inputing data into the website and cause the website to crash. If your website sounds exactly like this, perhaps its time to get someone to take care of your website. Always remember that your website is like a sales associate, it can only flourish if you provide it some resource. That is why sometimes hiring a web admin for a low cost of 200-500 a month can sometimes be beneficial for your website in a long run. The web admin will ensure that data, user experience, and compatibility is up to date at all times and can help you fix or update pages as and when needed.

New Functions and Capability

Probably one of the most obvious factors, Websites can help you accomplish many functions and capabilities. If your business is exploring new functions that your current website is unable to achieve, perhaps it is important to do a fresh revamp. Talk to a web developer about the functionality you need for your website and they will advise you on the estimated cost and whether it is the best solution for your business.

Making the decision to revamp your website can be difficult. Not only does it cost a lot to completely change the website’s functionality, design and look. It can also take up a lot of your business time and take many months to complete. However, Making that decision means you are forward thinking and making sure that your website is up to date with the current standards. In today’s digital age, it is important to not only rely on traditional methods but on online media platforms to increase your lead potential.

If you are interested in finding out what Proximacy can do for your business, Contact us today or chat with us through our Facebook page.