Whatever line of business you are in, the key to increasing your profits is attracting new customers and keeping them engaged once they visit your website. As with most aspects of life, styles and designs change over time and if your website goes too long without being refreshed, it begins to look like the online equivalent of someone walking around with 80s shoulder pads.
If you want your site to have a deliberate retro look as part of your unique selling point, that is all very well and good, but if it simply looks stale and old, potential customers may assume your products or services are also subpar. Here are further reasons to give your website a fresh new look.
Mobile optimization
The world of web design and development is constantly evolving and failing to ensure such innovations are applied to your own site means you risk losing out on potential customers. While a decade ago, most people accessed the internet via desktop or laptop computers, but the launch of the iPhone in 2007 began a trend that has been in continuous growth ever since and means that the vast majority of people now expect to access online services via mobile devices.
In 2015, Google announced that its search results would begin to favor sites that were mobile friendly. This means that if your site is not optimized for mobile devices, users will be less likely to encounter it during a general search, and even if they do, they will find it far more difficult to navigate, ultimately leading them to look elsewhere.
You’re falling behind the competition
The many adages that suggest you should not change something that is working well fail to take into account what is happening with your competitors. Every entrepreneur who wants to stay at the top of their game should schedule a regular time to check out what the competition is doing. A rival firm that is always on top of the latest trends and developments, as well as shifts in user behavior, will have a site that takes advantage of all these elements to attract a greater share of the market. While the effect of such changes may take some time to affect your bottom line, do not delay incorporating similar features into your own website.
Invest in your website and speak to website development Cincinnati based professionals at Data Design Systems, who can offer a wide range of services to ensure the first impression your customers get when they go online is a favorable one. The advantage of working with this sort of company is that they can handle all aspects of your online presence and create a system that is capable of growing with your company. This means you will easily be able to add additional functionalities and features in the future without having to start over from scratch.
Your business model has changed
Although you may have had a clear vision of where you wanted your company to be when you first launched it, that vision may have changed for a number of reasons. It could be that you have launched new products of services, that you are going after a different sector of the market or that you are following an alternative business model.
If these changes are not reflected in your website, you could once again be missing out on potential business as those customers that do visit will not learn about the full range of services that you offer, and search engines will fail to point those individuals that could turn out to be ideal customers towards your site in the first place.
Freedom from Flash
If you have had your website in place for many years, it may have been built using the Adobe Flash software. Once the gold standard in web design and development, Flash was famously despised by Apple CEO Steve Jobs who refused to incorporate into either iPads or iPhones due to concerns over its inefficiency and lack of security.
Initially criticized for the decision which left many users of iOS devices frustrated, Jobs even went so far as to publish an open letter in 2010, outlining the reasons behind the move. Ultimately, his skepticism paid off as the developers of Flash have since discontinued the product. If, however, your site is still running on Flash, thousands of potential customers will not be able to make it work on their mobile devices and you should have it completely rebuilt from the ground up as quickly as possible.