“I’ve had a website for years, I don’t need a new one.”

When you first launched your website, hopefully you were overjoyed to have joined the brave new world of online marketing and if it was pitched well, it will have brought in a steady flow of business over the years.

If you were an early adopter of internet marketing via your own website, you may have revelled in the warm glow of envy of others in your industry.  You most likely saw a pleasing upturn in business as people starting searching online instead of thumbing through the Yellow Pages, gathering paper-cuts as they went.

However, pleased you are with your site, you may be told that you should get a new one, or wonder yourself if it is still up to scratch.

Why Should I Upgrade Or Overhaul My Website?

If your website was made prior to 2010 it almost certainly doesn’t work beautifully on Android tablets, iPads, iPhones, Android phones, laptops and desktops, though it might work on one or two of these.

Unresponsive Sites Mean Fewer Clients

Google made changes in April 2015 that mean sites which don’t work well for mobile device users, don’t rank as highly as those that do ( http://searchengineland.com/library/google/google-mobile-friendly-update ).

“More internet users are on mobile devices than desktop computers now.  If you aren’t serving them the best experience, then you are potentially discarding more than half of your potential clients.”

I am told that there are some businesses where more people visit from desktop and laptop computers than any other platform.  There may be a few out there, but there aren’t many. ( http://www.statista.com/topics/779/mobile-internet/ )

If you can’t afford to throw away that much work, but can easily afford to have us rebuild your website for you, you need your website rebuilt.

I Used To Like My Site, But It’s Grown Old

Tastes change and that is as true of the market place as it is of fashions.  You may have loved puce and lime when you had the side made, but now you want to rebrand.

Some businesses invested in a ‘Flash’ based website and found in recent years that Flash is no longer supported.  That means very few internet users can actually see their site at all.

Perhaps you’ve changed your services as you found some offerings worked better than others.  Perhaps the company has changed hands or directors, managers or PR staff have come and gone.

Whatever the reason, if you can make your site more attractive and engaging and please a wider audience by changing things around, that’s a pretty good reason to do so.

Prospective clients who find what they want on your site are more likely to engage you for business.

Do I Have To Change How My Site Looks Regularly To Win More Business?

Providing that your website works well on mobile devices and you and your clients like the way that your website looks, there is little benefit in spending time and effort changing aesthetics.

One Swallow Does Not A Summer Make

Don’t be swayed by one off comments about how the site looks and works which may just be a personal taste issue.

If you have concerns about your website, do ask your clients, family members to tell you honestly what they think.  If the same comment pops up twice or more, without you prompting for it, then maybe you should consider updating your website for the better.  You might just want to pay for small tweaks, you may want to renovate it wholesale.

Why Did I Leave It So Long?

One of the major factors Google takes into account is when a website was last updated and indeed, how often it is updated.  Who wants to read old news?

Sure, if you are the number one resource for a certain service, product or information, your website may rank well despite being somewhat dusty.  In general however, it pays to have relevant work done on your website a little at a time, regularly.

Keeping Websites Fresh

If you haven’t thought about updating your website in the last few months, or even years, you are missing a trick.  Google adores new content to evaluate (see: http://seopressor.com/blog/everything-you-need-to-know-about-google-freshness-algorithm/  )

It might seem pointless to keep updating your website when you haven’t changed what you do recently, but Google wants to know that you are still out there and that you care about your business and the services you offer.

How Fresh Is Google Fresh?

Google staff I spoke to recently said that every few days is best, every week, a good idea, every fortnight a must and every month an absolute baseline.  I know many business managers haven’t the time or funding to create a new article every few days.  That’s probably a good reason to work on social media for your site.

Can Social Media Really Help My Business

Yes, social media can help you.  Well written, regular posts on social media which are linked to and from your website or preferrably even displayed as a feed on your site can help.  Alternatively, excerpts on social media which point to your website content are useful traffic too.  This is especially useful if your visitors like, share and comment on what you make.

I fully understand those that scratch their heads and say “I’m a roofer, waste disposal service,” etc, “who wants to read my company’s thread on Facebook?”  The answer is that while many people won’t, Google sees that it is there and that you are updating it with content which is relevant to your website.

Who knows, perhaps you will be the worlds first waste disposal agent with a million Facebook friends!  Even if you don’t, you will be sending out important signals to search engines that you are out there and enthusiastic about providing your service to your clients.

How Can I Started Rebuilding Or Freshening Up My Website

Take a look at your business as it stands today and list the services or products that you want to push harder.  What makes you the best profit, what work do you enjoy the most?

Next, take a long hard look at your website.  Does it represent your business now as well as it represented you when it was built?  Ask yourself what you would change if you could just snap your fingers and make it happen.

Finally, put together a list of changes you’d like to make, be it small changes to the text, updates to the imagery and photography on  your pages, a new logo and colour scheme or anything else that you like.

Finally, contact us here with the details that you have gathered and let us reshape and mould your current site into a new, responsive site that you will be proud of again.