- 03/18/19
- imagine
You’ve probably spent hours of time and a lot of effort into building your perfect website. In 2019, having your own website is an essential part of any business- and by far the most effective marketing tool. A solid website can generate leads and sales, and gives past customers a reason to come back.
So now you’ve got your beautifully designed website up and running- but the work isn’t quite over. Unfortunately, websites don’t run themselves. You’re going to need to update it as often as possible. There are a few reasons for this, which we are going to get into in this article.
By updating your website regularly, you’re less likely to suffer from security breaches. This is especially important if you’re taking payment through your website and hold customer’s personal data. When somebody gives you their information through your website- they are trusting you to look after it. If your website is relying on older technology, it’s much easier for hackers to gain access. Don’t lose customer trust- keep your website updated.
In addition to this, website updates will fix any bugs visitors to your website may encounter. Nothing gives off a bad first impression more than a website that doesn’t scroll properly, or buttons that don’t work. To maintain a professional appearance, make sure you iron out any bugs as soon as they’re discovered. With millions of websites to explore, users experiencing a bug will quickly move on to the next. You should aim for your site to load up within 5 seconds. If it doesn’t, it’s time to have a look at updating. People don’t have the time to wait around for your site to load- and you don’t want to lose potential custom.
While we’re on the topic of making a good impression- the actual design of your website needs to evaluated every so often. Times change, and so does what looks good in a website. Take a look at competitor sites and see how they’re changing things up. If your website has the same design as it did in 1999, you’ll give visitors the idea that you’re irrelevant and have no cutting-edge information to share with them. If you don’t have an eye for design, hiring a website designer or graphic artist will be a huge help. People will find your site much more memorable if it looks stunning and performs well.
If your site isn’t mobile friendly, get that updated as soon as possible. By not making your website accessible to mobile viewers- you’re massively cutting down on potential traffic. This is a simple update which can bring with it thousands more leads and sales.
Updating your website will also boost your search engine ranking. Whenever you update your site, the search engine bots will visit your site- looking over keywords to boost your SEO rankings. Search engines take big preference over fresh content, and they like to highly rank sites that regularly add new stuff. If you don’t update your website, bots will stop checking it. Not only will your rankings not be boosted, but they’ll also actually go down for some keywords. A website isn’t a viable investment if you have no traffic- so make sure you’re adding content regularly.
So if you haven’t updated your site in a long time, get to it- the results will speak for themselves.
