If you’ve ever gone house hunting, you know how important curb appeal is. It’s the “drive by factor. Even if the interior is absolutely smashing, if a house doesn’t look appealing from the outside, few potential buyers will make it inside.
Photo Credit: Brock Builders
That same visual appeal applies to websites. Those that haven’t been updated are “drive by’s”. One look and the (potential) visitor is gone. No matter that what you’re selling is exactly what that visitor is looking for….they won’t ever see it!
Some people are vigilant about keeping their websites fresh. Generally, they’re web designers, developers or content marketers who do this for clients on a daily basis.
But let’s say you’re not a web designer or developer. No doubt, you’re busy with projects, proposals, meetings and keeping clients and customers happy. Days are full and time is tight. Marketing can often fall by the wayside. We get it. We’ve been there!
But your website is your face to the world. Your 24/7 online presence. Visitors to your site (who can visit round the clock) expect that what they’re seeing is fresh and current. If what they’re viewing looks dated and stale, that’s how they’ll view your brand.
The odds of them shopping your site, returning or sharing your products on social media are slim. Now, waiting to update your marketing looks like a big mistake.
So how can you preempt a situation like that? How do you know when your website needs to be updated?
If you’ve installed Google Analytics on your site, look at the stats. Those numbers will give you a clear picture of traffic over the past few weeks, months, years. If the numbers are trending downward – visits, bounce rate, time spent on the site (engagement) – you’re probably in need of a site revamp or at least a fresh new look.
What you don’t want to do is wait until your site is seriously dated.
A colleague, who’d been talking about getting a new website for the past few years but got sidetracked with client work, called me a few weeks ago. She said NOW, she really needed a new website. Why? Someone had visited her site and called to ask if she was still in business. The site was so dated that they thought it was what was left of her “former” business. Testimonials were old. News wasn’t current.. And the design looked a whole lot like layouts that were popular ten years ago. Small pictures. Dated fonts. Borrrrr….ing!
A parting note…..in case you’re still thinking “I’ve got more important things to do than update my website”…..
Any idea how much money is generated online? An infographic from Ever Merchant in an Adweek article in July, 2014 cites the figure at more than $1.2 million every 30 seconds. Does that put a website revamp at the top of your to-do list?