A company’s corporate website is its face and an instrument of interaction with the user. In 2021, it is not enough to have a page with a minimal set of information. The site needs visitors and customers, which search engine optimization helps get.
How do you know if your site needs to be updated
A sign that something is wrong is a steady decline in site traffic. Perhaps the site hasn’t been updated in a long time and is no longer of interest to people and search engines. The site may have an outdated design or content, broken functionality, it may not be adapted for mobile devices, or the site is poorly optimized. In each of these cases, the site needs to be redesigned: partially or completely.
Comprehensive analysis, SEO, and usability audits will help you figure out what’s set up correctly, and what can be improved to increase positions and conversions. Do a quick check. If you recognize your site at least at one point, you should probably update it.
But before we get started, there’s one more thing to keep in mind. The first problem you may encounter (especially if you run a small business) is the lack of a person on your team who knows enough about SEO optimization to identify and/or solve the relevant problem. Ignorance doesn’t solve the problem, so don’t assume that the site needs to be handled on a residual basis. If your delivery car breaks down, you hire an auto mechanic. If you need market research, you’ll pay for research papers help or hire an employee to do it. Don’t assume anything works differently with a website. So find a professional you can trust and work with them as needed.
9 signs that the site needs to be updated:
1. The site is outdated.
Developers advise updating the site every 3-5 years. If the site is from the millennia, made on an old template, with an old layout – it will not be able to adapt to new realities. Design trends change rapidly, the visitor quickly grasps outdated techniques, competitors do not sit still, the conversion decreases. For example, some sites still use Flash technology, support for which ceased in December 2020. Some tools were once popular, but new ones have taken their place.
2. The traffic decreased.
First, you need to understand the reasons for the traffic decrease and confirm this drop in analytics systems. The analytics tracking code may have come down due to a CMS template update. In this case, you need to check the correctness of the settings. The positions of the site in search engines may decrease may have decreased due to an update of the ranking algorithm. In this case, you need to calm down and wait: a week later everything itself will be back to normal, and you will not be able to influence it. Also, low requests may be associated with a narrow niche or seasonal demand. But if the dynamics of falling traffic is persistent, then you need to think about SEO audit and comprehensive analysis of content, semantics, site structure, behavioral factors.
3. Incorrect structure.
The structure of the site is a logical arrangement of all pages of the resource. The structure directly affects the ranking. The better it is, the faster the site will be indexed. If the structure of the site will be vague, it will confuse the search robot. As a result, the site will not be shown for a part of queries. Website visitors also do not like to search for a long time to find the right information. As in a supermarket, they expect to find the bread in the bakery section, and on the site, they expect to find the right product in the appropriate section.
4. The site is not designed for demand.
You can’t sell both tables and refrigerators on one site. If you have several lines of business, information about goods and services needs to be clearly structured and grouped on different sites.
5. The site is not adapted to screens on different devices.
According to the Digital 2021 study in January 2021, 55.7% of pages were loaded on mobile browsers and 41.4% were loaded on PCs and laptops. This suggests that the site needs to adapt to different devices. While mobile traffic is important, people still use computers. And they may also have different screen resolutions to consider. Back in 2015, Google said that having an adaptive or mobile-friendly version has a positive effect on site rankings. Not having a mobile or PC version of a site can have a negative impact on the behavior of site visitors – they may leave the site shortly after visiting because of the inconvenience. Therefore, the rule works: no adaptive version of the site = no site.
6. Low site load speeds.
The Gomez Peak Time Internet Usage Study says: 88% of users say they will not return to a site that fails to load. 75% of visitors leave for competitors if they encounter problems with the site. Page rankings also depend on loading speed.
7. Poor quality templates.
Poor quality templates do not allow quick editing of content, change headings, contain a lot of unnecessary elements that blur textual relevance. Textual relevance is the relevance of the text of the page with search queries. The higher the textual relevance, the more the page has a chance to get to the top of search results. Thus, poor-quality templates hinder SEO promotion.
8. The site no longer meets business objectives.
This happens when the company’s business processes change: the way orders are processed, payment or delivery is made. Or new functions need to be introduced, such as a calculator and other services. When new tasks arise for the business, then there is a need to modernize the site.
9. Flawed commercial factors.
Not up-to-date contact information, inaccurate information about prices and services, old articles, recognizable stock photos, non-existent pages, and broken links lead to the loss of customers every minute. For example, when there is a map, detailed directions and lots of contacts, work schedule, we immediately understand who to contact, when and where to come. Such design is more appealing to the user.
You can leave things as they are, but…
A company’s prosperity depends largely on the ability to react quickly to changes. That includes site improvements. They help a business get to the next level. If no action is taken, the state of the site and subsequently the entire business will deteriorate. As the site becomes more and more outdated and problems are not addressed, traffic will also decrease. In the end, you can leave things as they are, but then the question arises – do you need the site if you’re not interested in maximizing its effectiveness?
Of course, solving these problems may require additional resources. Especially if you don’t have employees who have the knowledge and skills to solve them. But don’t consider this spending as a loss of money – consider it an investment. After all, the more important it is for your business to have a high-quality site, the more these investments will eventually pay off.