Technology has improved vastly over the past decade, with the internet being at the forefront of virtually every one of these advancements. Smart phones and tablet devices are part of our everyday lives, and it’s pretty difficult to imagine life without them. We use them for shopping, planning holidays, online banking and everything else you can imagine. With such easy access to the web, using a mobile device is now part of life as we know it. With technology being such a vital part of our lives, it is something that we must embrace and use for our chances of succeeding in business.
Regardless of the size of your business, it’s a simple fact that your business won’t stand a chance unless you have a website – and not just any type of website, but one that actually ranks and generates new clients and income for you. If you have a website from 10 years ago that you’ve never updated, or one that is very basic, then you could be losing out on thousands of potential income each and every month of the year.
Without even realising it, your website could be the sole reason why your business is suffering and not growing as you had expected it to. Below we will take a look at 6 reasons why you might seriously need to consider either remaking your website, or getting a new one made.
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No concise “call to action” on your website
If you want a visitor to your website to take specific action, then the best way to get them to do this is to simply ask for it. Having a well-placed “call to action” on your website will make it easier for visitors to take the action you want them to perform.
Maybe you are looking for more like or shares for a new article you have written ? Maybe you want them to sign up for a free trial of your services ? Maybe you want them to check out your list of products so that they can buy a few ??
Whatever the desired action, having good “call to action” placements on your website will make this much easier to achieve. It is important to place these clickable links strategically around your website and within your content. Well placed “call to action” buttons and links can be the difference between your website generating new business or not.
The layout of your website needs drastic attention
The first 5-6 seconds that someone will spend on your website are the most important, and during that brief time, they will quickly evaluate whether to stay on your website, or quickly head back to Google and find another (which in turn will negatively affect your bounce rate).
If a visitor to your site has to scroll down below the fold to find important information then there is a very high probability that they will not find it and click back and look for an alternative website. It is extremely important to have a well laid out website where your information is easy to find and clearly visible, as well as having a good navigation system making it a simple task for someone to find what they are looking for.
Your website should have a good amount of content but not too much, as no one wants to read a 4500 word page which is simply your company profile. Keep things short and to the point. Make sure that each page has the information that a visitor would expect to find on it. Images are important but make sure they are relevant to what your business is about. There is no point in having photos of cups of coffee when your business is landscaping.
Don’t make it difficult for your users to navigate around your site, as they can easily close it and look for another website which is easier to use.
Your website looks like it is over 10 years old
Having a website that looks out of date is only going to give your site visitors negative thoughts about your business. If a company cannot be bothered to maintain or update their website – what does that say about how they run their business?
Having a website that looks great and performs smoothly is a certain way to boost your potential income and clients. Though there are many do-it-yourself website builders out there, many business owners will not know how to properly use them, and the end result would be a website that simply looks awful and will not work.
If you are serious about having a professional website for your business, then you need to hire a web design company to undertake the project. Don’t waste your time and money trying to do something yourself that you have no experience with. Get in touch with a professional web design agency, and let them do it for you.
A lack of social media
In the modern world, social media is all around us. It is part of our daily online lives, so when you come across a business website that doesn’t have any social media links, many people are instantly turned away. Social media is a great way of maintaining contact with your clients, and a way to promote your business and services to the masses.
There is no cost involved in creating social media accounts for your business. You can set them up in a very short time, and connect with existing clients as well as potentially new ones. The main social media accounts to have are Facebook and Twitter. If you are in a market where you can take photographs of your services (such as wedding planner or catering) – then having social media accounts with Instagram and Pinterest will also be beneficial. However, if you are an accountant, then there are only so many photos you could possibly post of your calculator on Instagram, so you might want to skip that particular social media account.
Once you have your social media accounts set up, you will want to link to them from not only your website, but from the other social media accounts. For example, on Twitter, make a Tweet that tells people that they can also find you on Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn. Also ask your friends and family members to like and follow you on social media. This small group of followers and friends could very quickly increase in number, providing you with a much great outreach of potential business.
Your website is NOT mobile friendly
Today you will find that most websites work perfectly on all types of devices, ranging from desktop PCs and laptops to smart phones and tablets. Most templates and themes for websites are responsive, meaning that they will adapt depending on the device that you are using to access the website.
However, there are still a huge number of websites that were made over 6 years ago and more that are not mobile friendly. When you try and view one of these websites on your mobile phone you will find that the text is tiny and unreadable, the menu links are too small to click, and the overall experience is one that will have you looking for an alternative website to visit.
People using the internet on the go want information as fast as possible, so if your website is one with a huge number of images, or running on a slow server, then these are all things that will make the experience of visiting your site via a mobile device a negative one.
Over the past 5 years, the number of people accessing the net from smart phones has increased to such an extent that today there are more people using mobile devices to get online rather than standard PCs or laptops. If your website is not mobile friendly then you are losing out to a huge number of potential traffic to your website, and losing a great deal of possible income and new clients.
Can a user quickly find your contact details ?
You’ll be surprised how many websites there are out there that seem to hide the contact details of the business. A lot of the time this information will only be placed on the “Contact Us” page. However, studies and research has found that it is much more effective to have your business details on every page of your website.
The most common place is in the footer of your website, where you should include your business name, address, telephone number and email address. Adding your social media links here is also important, and social media is another method that a lot of people communicate through on a daily basis.
If a user comes to your website and simply wants to find your phone number to give you a call, and they have to wade through pages and pages on your site to find your number, then the chances are, they would give up and simply find someone else. Having your telephone number is a highly visual place on your site – such as at the top of the page – is very important. Your phone number could actually be your “call to action” which is mentioned at the start of this article.
You have a slow loading website
If you website is very slow to load, then this is a really big turn off for visitors. There is nothing worse than waiting 2 minutes for a website to load. Most people expect to see the page loaded within the first 3-5 second of arriving on a website. If it takes longer than that, then most visitors will click back and find another site to view.
There are various reasons why your website might be too slow in loading. One is the number of size of images that you use on the website. Images should be optimized for the web, which means that their file size is greatly reduced from its original site. Another cause of slow loading websites is the server that the site is hosted on. Server quality varies from host to host, so you might want to consider moving your website over to a new host, where the server would be more up to date and will result in your website loading a lot quicker than before.
There are a lot more reasons why you might find that your website is not performing as well as it could, but the 6 mentioned above are probably the most important. If you do see that your website is not working as well as you expected, or you are not ranking in Google for your main search terms, then you should consider getting in touch with a professional agency to can help you identify the problems with your current website and offer you suggestions on either how to fix such problems, or in most cases, the opportunity to have a new website designed which would be a better solution.
