(Updated: 15 September 2022)
Having a website in today’s business landscape has become a vital part of marketing your brand. As we continually strive for digital innovation, a website has become more than “a source of information”, it has become a means of connecting with potential customers, reflecting your brand and its value, and enticing customers to engage with your brand by either purchasing a product or selecting a service.
Therefore, the need for having a good – great website cannot be understated. More often than not, a customer’s first impression or interaction with your brand starts from the website. Having an outdated, broken, poor performing or hard to navigate website can leave potential customers with a sour opinion towards your brand.
In this article, we will take a look at a few reasons an outdated website can negatively affect your business, and how a website audit can help you take the necessary steps at improving your website.
How an old and outdated website can affect your business
- Bad user experience
User experience is a vital part of a strong website design. Users want to be able to access the information they need as efficiently as possible. Therefore, a modern website with easy-to-use navigation, direct messaging and speedy page loads are essential to a good user-friendly experience. - Losing mobile audience attention
With the advancements in technology making information easier to access anywhere on the planet, the number of mobile users exceeds the number of desktop ones. Therefore, having a responsive website that functions correctly across multiple devices can open your brand to an expanded audience that your outdated website is currently costing you. - A question of quality and customer service
Being perceived as high quality and customer-oriented is a big win in a potential client’s eyes, after all, they want to know what they’re purchasing is of good quality. As the website is typically the first thing people see, first impressions matter. If you have an old, outdated website, it give potential clients the wrong idea that your products aren’t great and that customer happiness isn’t a priority.
How a website audit can help your business
Through the process of a website audit, you will be able to receive actionable insights into the overall performance of your website from the perspective of a professional website designer. A website audit can help identify pitfalls such as poor planned or outdated SEO, technical issues or potential security concerns that come with outdated themes or plugins, visual or content related changes that need to be improved upon etc. The goal with these actionable insights is to make your website a stronger sales platform that can help generate leads.
- Improve your rankings in SERP’s (search engine results page)
Having effective “On-Page SEO” throughout your website can help search engines such as Google best determine the relevancy of your content in relation to a potential customers query. An audit will help identify your current SEO shortfalls and provide suggestions on how to improve them, in order to better your organic rankings within the SERP’s. - Enhance your user experience
A website that provides ease of navigation, easy to access information, remains functional across devices and loads quickly, are all aspects that make a potential customers experience of your website good or bad. With a website audit, you can identify both front end and back end issues that could be jeopardizing your website’s ability to provide a good user experience, and provide suggestions on how to improve this for your audience. - Getting the desired results
Let’s be honest, the goal for any business is to make money. The desired result of having a business website is to convert website visitors into paying customers. The website audit takes a look at your website sales methods and how it guides people to a particular action. This action could be anything from making a call to completing an online survey form. It really all depends on what your goal is for your website. But if you aren’t telling people what they need to do next, they could end up feeling lost. A reader that feels lost will move on to other websites that are easier to discern. Using a website audit will help you identify whether you are saying the right things to the right people.
What does all of this mean at the end of the day?
Design tweaks can refresh your website in a quick and inexpensive way. If you are attempting to make these changes yourself, you may be wondering where you should even start. If you contact a professional website designer, they will know how to give your website a complete overhaul. They will help you map out a plan that will ensure the growth of your website and your business. Your company growth can only be achieved if you constantly evolve. This evolution can only begin if you focus on new content and design adjustments as your company, website, or brand changes. A website audit will be able to tell you whether or not you are progressing or regressing.
When you have an audit done on your website, you will receive an in-depth report. With this report, you will be able to take action. You will be able to implement all the necessary updates to your website. Your website will then start converting more visitors into paying customers. Your customers will start to see your website as the preferred choice over your competitors. If your website attracts people to it and their interest lasts long enough, they will more than likely turn that interest into a sale of some kind. Therefore, by enhancing your website, you have a recipe for success!
As the saying goes “don’t fix what isn’t broken”, however, we here at Cognite believe that even things that aren’t broken can be fixed! Your website may be in perfect working order, but is your website really working for you? The design of your website is not just what it looks like. The design is how it works. Let Cognite put all of the pieces of your website together.
