Long gone are the days when you could just own a website and not worry about updating and maintaining it regularly. Today technology is constantly evolving, it’s imperative that you maintain and keep your website updated with the latest trends, technology, and search engine algorithms (In 2016 Google had over 500 algorithm changes)
Also, users are way more savvy and picky these days, with all the information available. You have less than two seconds to make an impression on someone when they visit your website. Does your website have what takes to keep your visitors there? More importantly is your site mobile responsive? If not you are in big trouble.60% of all web traffic is from a mobile device and if visitors are going to have to zoom and drag to view your site they will leave.
Update & stay competitive in search results
The online world revolves around Google and Google loves current, up to date web pages. They will favor more up to date or recently updated web pages against those that have not been updated for some time. So with that in mind and the assumption, your competitors are updating their websites often, it’s only too easy to see the benefits here. Updates will keep your website in the search engine results pages (subject to many other things of course) and compete against competitor sites.
Evolve with technology & meet design standards
The evolution of web technology and mobile devices particularly has forced a demand to update your websites design and responsiveness to mobile devices. By responsiveness I mean whether your website adapts automatically to best viewing on a mobile phone, tablet or a desktop computer. This evolution has changed how web users access sites, view sites and use websites. For older websites, built before current technology, there is an immediate need to upgrade your website to meet the current standards. This wouldn’t be for the sake of “meeting standards,” this is to meet user expectations, as we all expect a website to work well whether we view it on a desktop computer, a mobile phone, a tablet or our flat screen TV.
Search engines are now looking very closely at whether or not your website meets these demands and listing them accordingly.
Encourage user engagement & attract re-visits
Ultimately a website is there for its users, to provide them with the information they need to do whatever it is the company wants their visitors to do (Purchase something, register, sign up or inquire about a service). So the engagement of your web visitors is quite important from when they arrive at your site to how they move throughout it and engage with it (if at all).
You can take user engagement to all sorts of levels. You can develop new parts to your website that will further engage visitors or encourage them to re-visit your site another time. Anything from blogs, articles, competitions or even new photos & videos will bring exciting new content to the website and encourage users to spend more time there, hopefully engaging in the things you want to them.
The point of this blog was not to convince you to change your website just for the sake of changing. We want you to see that is technology is constantly evolving and in order for your site to be relevant, it is a necessity.
We put much thought and expertise into each of our products, to create useful and easy to use tools for you to build and manage your business. We want you to succeed, and we’re here to help and guide you through the process. Give us a call or send us an email and we’ll advise you on how to get the most out of your website.