Gone are the days when you could ignore your digital presence or simply turn a blind eye to your website’s loading speed or user journey. It’s now the era of cutting-edge technology, lightning speed, sharp design and compelling content when it comes to your brand in the digital space. Whether it’s your main social media channels, email marketing, those abandoned Pinterest boards or your website, the image you build for your company in the online environment is a reflection of your business, who you are and what you do.
That being said, when was the last time you had a proper look at your website? Some information might be outdated, some content might no longer be relevant or pages might not load properly. Maybe it’s even time to change the layout, add some new social buttons or completely revamp your site.
And if you’re still on the fence after this, here are 5 reasons why you need to improve your website today:
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Branding Identity
Your business may go through a rebranding process or simply tweak a few things here and there, however, ensuring your new branding is reflected on your website is crucial to maintaining a consistent identity for your company. This could call for some necessary changes in your written content as well, whether you need to refresh the voice of your brand or adjust it slightly to match the new look on your website.
Your website is one of your most valuable assets in the digital space and potential customers could be browsing through any of your pages at any time. That’s why you want to constantly revisit your website and look at it from a potential customer’s perspective to maximise your chances of impressing your online visitors.
The Magical Word ‘SEO’
If you underestimate the importance of your website’s rankings, you are losing the opportunity to get new leads for your business every single day. The content on your website, as well as the work you put in making sure there are no errors on any of your pages and all of them have a tag and descriptions (and many more!), contribute massively to your website ranking high on search engines like Google.
It’s important in today’s world to be among the first results someone sees when searching for something online, it brings you to their attention and if your product or service matches their needs and plans, you’re in for a treat!
I have talked more about SEO and its importance, as well as all relevant stages to help you optimise your website in two of my other articles, On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO.
Keeping Up With The Tech
May sound a bit obvious, but it is an aspect of your website that can be easily overlooked if you’re not paying attention. Even the speed of your website should be regularly checked to see if it meets the new standards. As everything becomes faster, sharper and more complex in the online environment, you shouldn’t wait years before you update your website.
By not doing so, you risk to increase your bounce rate, forget about dead links where content doesn’t exist anymore or miss noticing pages with errors. Even if there is nothing changing in your business strategy, branding or approach, it is still relevant to have a look at your website every 2-3 years and understand what improvements are needed when it comes to UI, UX, content and technology.
There Is A Whole World Beyond Desktop…
….that you’re missing out on if your website is not mobile optimised. More than half of the world’s website traffic in the past 10 years has been coming in from mobile. You would think that since everyone is on their phones all the time, all websites would be optimised for our little screens, but you would be suprised how many websites are not correctly displaying their content on mobile because they’ve been overlooked.
This is especially the case with (very) old websites where there was no mobile optimisation involved at all. If yours is one of these, today is the time to change that and update your website to enable you to get traffic from mobile users who are looking for a smooth navigation to find what they need.
Plug-Ins, Anyone?
There are new plug-ins available all the time (feels like every day) and some of them you probably don’t need. There are a few that might really make a difference for your website and if you had a closer look at your competitors, you might just see them using these.
If there is anything out there that might improve the experience of your online users, provide them with faster service, safer data processing, or just make your website stand out from the crowd, as our friends at Nike like to say, Just Do It!
At the end of the day, you want your customers to see what an amazing service or product you provide and how much value that can bring into their lives. The only way for them to see it is for you to show this to them through your social media, digital marketing and, of course, your website. Constantly improving your website will help you achieve more brand awareness, generate more leads and ultimately, grow your business.
