8 Signs That Your Website is Out of Date

admin - January 3, 2019July 29, 2022

A website is one of the most important business assets you possess. In order to stay ahead of the competition, a website usually gets tuned up every 3 to 6 months with fresh design and updated with new content given the frequently changing rules of the digital world. 

Not sure if you need a website refresh? Here are the 8 signs that your website is out of date.

1. Your website does not present your product or service clearly.

We’ve seen many websites filled with broad and general content on their homepages but fail to mention what they actually do. It’s dangerous to just assume your website visitors know what you do already. You don’t want your potential customers to get confused about what products you sell and what value your business can provide them with. 

Imagine you paid loads of money for people to click on your Google Ads, but visitors lost interest in the first few seconds because they didn’t have the time to figure out what your business actually does, or whether it does so in the way the user expects. That would be a shame. 

Check out some of the coolest websites designed by Digital8 web designers 

2. Your website does not resize for mobile devices and tablets

It is important to make sure your website is responsive and mobile-friendly. As of 2022, mobile devices account for about half of all web traffic, a trend that has been steadily growing and shows no signs of slowing down; not to mention that the Google algorithm ranks mobile-friendly websites higher in search results, meaning more traffic and higher converting possibilities. 

3. Your website does not rank in Google

There are several common reasons your website isn’t showing or ranks low in Google search results: 

• Your website hasn’t been optimised for search engines
• The keywords you’re using are too competitive
• Your website wasn’t designed with SEO in mind

Your website hasn’t been optimised for search engines

This is the most likely reason for your website to not rank because no one has put effort into optimising the SEO of your website which includes updating meta content, building backlinks or writing web content using relevant keywords. 

The keywords you use are too competitive

Your website needs to rank for the most profitable keywords. There’s a high chance more competitors will rank for those broader and more popular ones. If you are a niche competitor in a strong market you will struggle to rank for these. 

Keep in mind that you need to use keywords with higher relevance and lower competition while doing your research.

Your website wasn’t initially designed to rank in search engines 

Not all web developers understand the ins and outs of SEO. It’s possible that the technical aspects of your website are preventing search engines from understanding your website and therefore listing it on results pages. 

If that’s the case, you’ll certainly need to make some technical changes to help more users find your site on search engines. 

4. Your website does not generate leads

A couple of questions to ask yourself to know if your website is designed to encourage your website visitors to take further actions: 

• Do you have relevant call-to-actions in places that encourage conversion? 
• Do you have clear forms with a specific purpose for your potential customers to fill in without much effort? ​

If your website doesn’t have a clear flow that guides the users through the customer journey, makes sense that you wouldn’t be earning any leads. 

There’s also a big chance that your website does not rank in Google if it has never converted a single lead for you. 

Keep in mind that website usability, content relevance, and lead form optimisation are all fundamentally related because Google wants to make sure the users can find the resource they need efficiently. 

UX/UI design strategies can hugely improve your ability to capture relevant leads through your website, making it a powerful marketing tool for your business.

5. Your website takes a long time to load pages

Google found that when pages took between 1 and 3 seconds to load, there was a 32% increase in the probability that users would leave and if they took between 1 and 5 seconds, that probability increased to 90%.

In other words, if your website is slow, users are much less likely to stick around. 

There are many potential reasons for this including large code density, too many plugins and overloaded file requests which can result in your website taking ages to load. 

Get in touch and our web consultants can run a checkup on your website to audit your site load speed.

6. You’re using outdated aesthetics ​​

A good website designed by skilled UX/UI designers can instantly evoke a certain feeling and directs the website visitors to perceive the brand in a certain way. 

Website aesthetics are not just about making it pretty but also a powerful tool for the business to communicate the right message to users more effectively than your competitors.

7. You use an extremely old CMS or none at all

If you don’t have a Content Management System for your website these days, your developer is probably holding you hostage. 

CMS is such a powerful tool because it allows non-technical staff to make changes to the website. This makes frequent content updates possible, which is why choosing the right CMS is basically laying a solid foundation for your long-term SEO planning. 

Popular CMS frameworks include WordPress, Drupal, Shopify and others. Once you have your website built on a Content Management System, make sure it’s upgraded every now and then so your business site can have the latest security updates and admin features. 

8. The sales team cannot use it as a tool to close deals

What’s the point of a business website if not to help encourage sales? Sure, a strong website helps promote your brand and explain your products or services. But at the end of the day, it should be a powerful tool that captures customers and moves your business forward.

To be honest, it’s probably a strong sign that your website needs an upgrade if your sales team feel embarrassed to give the URL to your potential clients. 

If that’s the case, have a chat with us on how you can improve your website so your sales team can use it as an effective tool to close the deals.