You’ve heard it before, and you’ll hear it again. A company’s online marketing presence is so critical in determining its success (or demise). It’s a competitive world up there, first impressions are everything, and you need to make sure your web presence is as strong as possible, and helping to generate new business rather than turning away potential business. So that inspired us… how can someone determine if they need a new website?
Our top 10 tips to determine if you need a new website:
1. How does your website look on mobile? More than 50% of website traffic comes from a mobile device. It’s critical that you offer an optimized mobile experience. If you don’t you’re turning away potential business and also getting penalized by search engines. Make sure your organization has a responsive website. It’s 2016!
2. Have you included social media? Regardless of your business type, you should have some level of social media presence, and that presence needs to be known and promoted on your website. At the very least, include social media icons. Even better, include a social media feed, and possibly integrate some social share tools throughout the site to help users share your content.
3. Is your content being updated? When was your last Company News item posted? Are you adding newsletters or case studies to your website? Any new product or service offerings, or staffing updates? Search engines like to see that you keep your website updated, and believe me, so do your website visitors. If you don’t have a content management system on your website by now, get a new website, like, (July 28, 2016)!
4. Does your website include Flash? Many web browsers no longer support Flash, so this could be very important content that a large portion of your audience is unable to see. There are new technologies that have replaced Flash. Time to get that empty black box off your website and replace it with the message that you’ve been trying to share with your potential customers.
5. Do you have dynamic content on your website? Search engines love to see that your website is constantly being updated (see #3). By pulling in social feeds, news feeds, newsletter archives, etc., you’re pulling in dynamic content and showing that your website is being updated (aka the content is relevant!).
6. Is your website easy to navigate? If you can’t find certain content on your website, your potential customers certainly can’t find it, either. And search engines might not be finding it and indexing it properly. Ease of navigation is more important than you may realize, for a number of reasons.
7. Do you have consistent design throughout? If you go to a new page and you think you may have navigated to a new website, that’s not good! Also, make sure the branding elements on your website are consistent with the branding elements used in your other marketing media.
8. How’s your website’s content? Do you have too much copy and everything is crammed and tough to read? Are you showing photos that include outdated technologies? Are you providing a “facsimile” number on your contact page? Make sure you have the right balance of enough, but not too much, copy, images are modern, and everything is relevant.
9. Are you showing photos of your facility? 9 out of 10 times, this isn’t appropriate. We don’t care what your building looks like; we care about what the people inside are doing, what the products look like, and the value of your service. When’s the last time you earned a client because the outside of your office has a fresh coat of paint? The place needs to look great when someone comes to see you, but doesn’t need to be on your website. This isn’t always true, but it often is.
10. Do you have OLD website elements on your website? If you have a website traffic ticker, an outdated copyright date, or a list of every single zip code in your service area in your website footer, you need a new website. It looks bad, and could be hurting your SEO.
This article was originally posted here
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