There is no place for any business without an online presence in 2022. You are doing a great injustice to your business if you do not have a proper well-functioning website. There was a wave a few years back when almost everyone wanted to join the bandwagon of the internet. While some of them kept their consistency and like their business, kept innovating on their web presence as well, most of them still have their age old websites on which they haven’t made necessary changes.
There is a whole generation of people who consider having an online presence as a mere formality. There is no such thing as a static or just an informative website. If you are not leveraging the online business trends and are simply displaying information of your business in a static manner, you might want to think again.
Disadvantages of Your Old Website
It is common knowledge that the biggest and most used source of finding products or services is the internet. Connectivity is no longer a privilege. It is important to know what we are missing out on before understanding why, when and how we should fix that. The kind of web development services USA needs is the one telling users of the things they are missing. Even the most traditional and conventional businesses have opted for a dynamic website that helps them grow. What is also important to notice is that an average American visitor will spend anywhere from 5 seconds to a minute on a website depending on the quality of it. You surely want your visitors to stay longer on your website don’t you?
Having an old and dated website may hinder your growth in multiple ways. The world is moving forward with smart buyers and their smart trends. Having an old website that has limited functionalities can affect your brand adversely and may limit your growth. Here are some vital disadvantages that come with having a poor old website.
Poor brand value
Humans judge a product or a service largely by the look and feel of the brand or company. This was true even before the internet as most companies worked extensively to improve how their business logos and literature looked and felt. It is a tendency that won’t change with time and having an appealing brand value is no longer just an add on. The overall look and feel of your business has to be top notch on the internet as it paves way for great leads and opportunities.
No data monitoring
There wasn’t much emphasis on gathering the website traffic data back then as the percentage of people depending on the internet to get business was too low. Times have changed drastically and the minorities have truly become majorities. You may be missing out on terrific leads and business contacts if you do not have data monitoring and customer contact features on your website. Analyzing your traffic can transform your business in more ways than one.
Lack of compatibility
If you have not updated your website in years then it is likely that your website won’t be compatible across devices. Chances are that you built your website for the web and didn’t think much about optimizing it for mobile devices. Adding compatible displays, fonts and images to optimize its appearance on mobile screens is a bare minimum that you need to do in order to build your business through the internet.
Less secure
Not updating the website may result in data theft or website hack as well. Almost all attackers know the standard SQL tables and codes. Adding data to your website without updating it may result in attackers getting key access to your sensitive and confidential data. While opting for a revamp, it is important to work with agencies that offer full stack web development services instead of individual teams since having a perfect sync between a flashy innovative design and a robust and safe backend coding.
How Does Website Redesigning Work?
Before we get into key benefits of having an updated website, let us take a look at the three important questions about redesigning your website that start with when, why and how? It is important to know when you need to update your website, the reasons for it and the process as well.
- When
It is a simple answer of “now” if you have not updated your website in years. For those who do periodic updates, you can consider making upgrades at instances like release of Google core update, availability of new plug-ins or features that may be useful for you, possibility of hack threats, new device compatibility, major changes in products/services, etc.
- Why
Think of your website as your hairstyle. Just how you would make subtle or major changes in your hairstyle depending on the health of your hair, current trends, your own preferences or any other reasons over the years, you should also consider making changes in your website as well. Technology is taking giant leaps and there are chances that your competitors are making relevant changes that offer better user experience and enhance overall brand value with new features, design language and backend updates. You would not want to miss out on any of these.
- How
You no longer have to oblige your previous developers to revamp your old website. You can do your own research or based on the references you have already gotten, you can handover the task to a much more dynamic web design agency. You can keep a checklist of must-haves for your agency like experience, clientele, team information and reference from friends or family.
Key Benefits of Redesigning Your Website
If you know when, why and how you redesign your existing websites, you are in for a pleasant surprise. There are some direct benefits of having an updated website along with some intangible aspects that overall contribute a great deal to your business. Let us take a look at some key benefits of having a redesigned and updated website:
New Revenue Streams
No matter what your product or services are. Listing them online and offering a sales channel or an inquiry channel at least will add another dimension to your revenue streams. Listing your website on mass inquiry forums and engaging with your visitors and analyzing the website traffic will generate great leads and add a lot to your sales. Not to mention, having a proper blog section can attract advertisers and subsequent ad revenue as well.
Better Leads
Having an optimized website will result in greater visibility that will help you reach a wider user base. You may have limited the sales of your products or services to a certain geographical location but having wider outreach through the internet will attract bigger and better inquiries and you can close down massive deals with the same. A HubSpot report suggests that the conversion rate was 15% for websites that reacted to their data analytics quicker. Collecting data and analyzing the traffic will enable you to reach your target audience faster.
Improved Brand Value
Having a dynamic website adds to your overall brand appeal. Having an appealing look and feel of your appearance will definitely lead to better client conversion. We live in an age of data sharing and socializing over the internet. If you have a state of the art design and appearance then you will attract many customers through your profile sharing across various platforms.
Features that Tell A Story
There used to be a great limitation for people to showcase their products on their websites. Standard text and images were not good enough to convert potential customers. While most features are available via plug-ins and pre-defined codes in libraries, a standard guide for wordpress web development may introduce you to features like AR & VR that let you showcase your product or services in a completely fresh manner. Features like auto-chat help you answer some frequent and generic questions from your website visitors without any of your input. Integration of third party APIs like maps ensure better searchability & payment gateways ensure safe and sound business transactions.
Compatibility
Having a compatible website that is easily accessible through various devices helps you with better conversion. More than 56% of the total traffic on all websites comes through mobile internet. Having a mobile friendly website will help your users share and access your website better.
Better Communication
You may have had difficulties communicating with all your clients for a major announcement via email or phone calls. Important updates and announcements often go unnoticed when they are done through the conventional ways of communication. On the other hand, not having an official platform could also be misleading and may result in miscommunication. Having an updated and robust website can act as your official platform and any update or important announcement can be a featured post on the homepage of your website. This public broadcast-like feature eliminates any possible ambiguity that may result in any form of miscommunication.
The Final Word
Those who had to face disgusted looks from their friends every time they acknowledged having an old website or worse having no website at all know for a fact that now is the perfect time to correct their mistake. Those observing their rivals grow faster also feel the same way. No matter which of these situations you relate to, it is an established fact that having a dynamic and updated website adds a lot to your business. Websites and businesses on the internet have become from an added privilege to a basic necessity. Unlock the hidden potential of your business and add another dimension to it now by redesigning your website.
My name is Nandan, the Owner at Gtech Web Infotech Pvt. Ltd.. I’m also a designer and developer. I’ve been working in the web development field for last 12+ years. Developing and implementing small to large-scale projects and everything in between. Currently working on a lot of CMS, dev-tooling projects. Furthermore focusing on combining Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning with emerging technologies.
