Your website is Unresponsive
As of 2013, 91% of American adults own cell phones. The same source suggests that 63% of cell phone owners use their mobile devices to go online. So anyone visiting your site could be a potential lead and they could be using their mobile device to access your website. Without a mobile responsive website that looks great on all devices, you are doing your website visitors a disservice and risk losing them if they have to do a lot of “pinch and zooming” to navigate your website.
If your website is not mobile responsive it’s time for a design update!
First impressions are everything, and yours is weak
More than likely, the first impression a visitor gets of your website might be your first and only impression. Make it a good one.
A weak impression might include outdated and inaccurate content, confusing navigation, or a website that is generally not useful to the user. If you think your first impression is weak, it’s time to update your website!
You have rotating banners on your homepage
Let’s get this one out of the way. So many websites still have rotating banners on their homepage, but we don’t recommend them.
Why? Because the biggest issue with utilizing banners as a form of communication is people are prone to banner blindness. Basically, people will ignore anything that looks like an advertisement.
And that’s not very conducive for trying to communicate a message to your audience. So even though banners are huge and often contain important headline and information, people simply won’t read them.
Your website fonts and colors are wildly inconsistent
Imagine this - you’re driving down the road and every stop sign you come across is a different font, shape and color.
You’d have to really concentrate to know what the sign was trying to tell you. And that would likely lead to accidents as people take longer to understand the signs.
Well, that’s what happens on local business websites with inconsistent font and color uses. Your visitors have to concentrate really hard to understand where they can go and what they should do on your website.
What’s worse, is many will just choose to go elsewhere instead of taking this effort.
You use your developer too often
Are you still calling your developer for every little change? It shouldn’t be that hard anymore. If you identify with the “business owner who can’t make changes to their own website” bucket then it might be a sign you need to update your website to a more flexible, easy to use platform like Wordpress.
Perhaps you’re a novice with all things Internet related, in which case you might still want help from a more technical person. That said, it shouldn’t take weeks for small updates or cost you hundreds or thousands of dollars if you don’t need a completely custom website. The pieces have been built: WordPress, SquareSpace, Shopify, ThemeForest. The list goes on.
If small changes to your current website are difficult, you need a new, modern Wordpress website and you’ll be good to go.
Your page load times are slow
If it takes more than 3 seconds to load, your visitors will smash the “back” button. There are dozens of factors that contribute to page load speed including image sizes, poor or outdated code development, server speed and more.
Want to check the speed of your website? Just copy/paste the URL into this handy website speed tool.
If your website is getting below a B in score, contact our team to perform a website speed optimization and make it A+ lightning fast!
Your website is hard to navigate
Okay, so your site is responsive and it actually loads pretty quick. But where do your visitors go now? Your website’s visitors will thank you if you make the search for answers easy.
The goal of any website is to provide a great user experience. This means important information and actions are easy to do for your visitors. An easy example is hiding all contact information on a “Contact Us” page instead of having your phone number and email address prominently displayed in the navigation on every page. I can’t stress this enough - don’t make it hard for customers to contact you!
If your site is confusing and hard to navigate, it’s time for an update.
You rank poorly in search engines
If your website isn’t ranking in Google and other search engines, you likely have very few visitors. Which means that fancy pants website you dropped a few thousand dollars on is nothing more than a glorified business card.
But there’s good news! Your website is the foundation for your business online and its position in the search results can always be improved. If you see your competitors’ websites ranking #1 in Google when you Google your service, then it’s time to work on your website’s SEO.
Don't know where you stand in the search results? Enter your website URL here and we'll run a report on your website free of charge.
You haven’t touched your website in a year
Visitors to your website expect to see updated and pertinent information. Answers to their questions about pricing, process, and general FAQ. Neglecting your website means neglecting the people who are potentially interested in working with you. Keep it up to date when something major changes in your business, otherwise it’s time for an update!
I hope this list of 11 Signs Your Website Is Embarrassingly Outdated has helped you identify areas you can improve your own website.
If you don’t have time to do all that yourself, we can help. Contact Stambaugh Designs for more information.
