14 Reasons to Upgrade Your Website

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Sometimes a website just needs a little love Other times the site should be sent to the big web server in the sky (no, not the cloud). Where does your website stand? Are you smartly managing a major decision, or postponing the inevitable? Below are 14 important factors to help determine how well your website is performing for your business. 1. Administration of your website is costly and time consuming Your website is a living project, and therefore should be constantly evolving. Small improvements overtime (in business, in life, on your website) are the name of the game for long-term success. If simple changes to your website (changing photos, creating new pages, etc.) are costly, complex, or in the grip of your agency, then your website is holding your business back. Simple updates to your website shouldn’t require a degree in computer science, or boatloads of cash. 2. Your analytics are pointing in the wrong direction Your website's analytics tell you what actions users are taking, and at what frequency, alerting you to opportunities for growth — and to potential challenges. If important performance metrics are not improving (or are getting worse) - i.e. your traffic is static, page views / visit stink, no one shares your content or opens your emails, or your conversion rate is sub-par, then your analytics are trying to tell you something: “What you are doing is not working.” An update of your website may be in order. 3. Your layout and Navigation should be simple to use You've probably heard the phrase "Don't make me think," as it applies to user interfaces. This means is that if it is hard to use your website, most people won't. Questions to ask about your layout: Is it clear what the user is supposed to do when they visit? Does your site offer easy access to important pages? Do these pages have a call-to-action so the user knows what to do next? Is the checkout process fast, intuitive and trustworthy? 4. Poor typography speaks louder than your words If your site wasn't designed by someone with an excellent understanding of typography (how readable the text on your site is), chances are that poor typography distracting from your message. Believe it or not, great typography has little to do with the choice of font. It is more about details such as line length, line height, margins, character spacing and alignment. Well designed typography will make the user want to read your content and add immense impact to your words. 5. A well-chosen color palette creates a powerful emotional response Your user's mind sees and interperets meaning from the colors on your website before they even read the first word. Color sets the stage and context for everything else the user will experience on your site. Ask yourself: if your site had no words or pictures, what would a user think your brand represented? Your use of color may determine whether a user feels welcome and engaged, potentially becoming a new customer — or bounces from your site. 6. Your photos are worth less than 1,000 words The value of a great photo is inherently understood by most people: a nice profile photo on Facebook will garner lots of likes & comments, a vivid vacation photo can make the memory last a lifetime. Surprisingly though, many websites' product or feature photos are worth nowhere near the oft-touted 1,000 words. Sometimes the issue isn't the photo, but its location, size & styling. The effect that a good photo can have on site performance makes them worth prioritizing. 7. There should be no Flash on your website Flash has nothing resembling full-support across devices types, and given the importance of mobile platforms, this makes Flash a non-starter. If you have important content on your website embedded in Flash objects, this content is inaccessable to an ever-increasing share of your audience. Alternatives, such as HTML5, Javascript and CSS have support far superior to that of Flash, and will continue to do so indefinitely. 8. Your website is full of broken links and 404’s Evolution is great when it is in the spirit of constant improvement, but there’s a certain point when it’s time to start from scratch. If your site has been around for a number of years and has been through lots of versions, chances are that there are many links in your content which point to URLs that don’t exist anymore or have been moved. A new site gives you the chance to grab the bull by the horns and get your content organized once and for all. 9. Hackers see your website’s security as a welcome mat There's nothing quite like opening your home page one day to find that your website redirects to some black-hat SEOs effort to do link building for an online casino. It can be even worse when you find out that even after you fix the issue, Google is still penalizing you for having had a site that was hacked. If your site is constantly being hacked, or your security is outdated, don't rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. Nip this one in the bud, get a new site with good security built-in from the ground up. 10. You don’t have a blog for posting fresh content Great content delivers website performance like little else can. If your site has engaging content, it is more likely to be shared, liked, tweeted, and emailed. Your blog (or similar outlet) needs to showcase your expertise, unique voice and provide value to your readers. A website that continually provides high-quality content is sure to earn lots of return visits from users who want to develop a relationship with your brand. Building this audience takes time, so plant the seeds now. 11. Sharing your content should be easy If a user has to copy the URL of a page on your site from the address bar of their web broswer to share your content via their social network of choice, then you have a missed opportunity on your hands. The good news is that this is easy to fix! There are lots of social sharing plugins available for every major content management system that are generally very easy to install & configure. Don't get caught with your +1s down. 12. Engagement should be a core function of your site Does your site allow users comment on your content? Do visitors view more than the one page on which they arrived before leaving your site? Are they taking actions that drive value for your business (for example, filling out a contact form or scheduling an appointment)? If not, your website may be failing you. Even if they are doing these things, engagement can be so much more than page views, social shares and comments. Be creative — how could you leverage game mechanics to make consuming your content in to something users feel compelled to achieve? 13. Your site should highlight what you do best Whether you offer products on an ecommerce site, or are selling your services and expertise, your site should showcase the very best of what you have to offer. Your most popular & successful products should be highlighted in optimal places of your layout. Display your high-profile clients and most successful projects on your home page, or in an easily accesible portfolio. Have great testimonials from existing customers? Share these with your visitors. 14. Your website isn’t meeting your business objectives If your website doesn't meet your business objectives, even successfully addressing all of the other 13 points above doesn't matter. After all — what's the point of a beautiful website that doesn't serve your goals? So often business are sold visually stunning websites that accomplish exactly squat. The first and most important question of any new website is "Does this serve my business objectives?" If your design agency can't provide you with a concrete answer on exactly how the new site accomplishes this, keep looking. Are you ready to do it right? Would you like to unleash the potential of your business? Take the first step: www.loudnoises.us/contact

Comments

  • PaulIsLoud

    I hope you all enjoy this post as much as we enjoyed putting it together!!

    Special thanks to SEOmoz & Michael King for your always-excellent content which provided much of the inspiration for this post. And especially to Rand Fishkin for taking a moment to review the idea when it was still in the brainstorming phase.

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