Should you invest in a new website design? Here are 5 reasons why you should.

It’s no question that in this day and age a website is absolutely essential for any business to succeed, no matter the size. They help build better relationships with customers, increase sales, offer better accessibility to your clients and many other benefits.

However, it is important to understand that a website can’t just be built and then left alone for years to come. Like anything else man made it needs to be maintained and upgraded or face the risks of becoming outdated, problematic and forgotten. Here are some reasons to keep updating and investing in your website:

1. Change in technology

Technology changes rapidly, and you need to adapt or fall behind. Mobile internet usage surpassed PCs a while ago making them the most popular device for browsing the internet. Google knows this and is changing the way it ranks its searches and websites that are mobile friendly will rank higher. This is important if you want to maximize your chances of being found on search engines.

In the future, will mobile stay the most popular or will something new emerge? It’s impossible to say what the future holds of course, but what can be said with complete certainty is that the web will always change and improve, be ready to improve with it.

2. Relevancy

Most likely the primary way customers are going to find their way to your site is searching for products and services you provide, so being positioned as high as possible in search results is quite important. A quick way to fall off of Google’s radar is for your site to appear still and irrelevant. Google loves websites that are lively and modern so refreshing your site every couple of years will keep you on Google’s radar, and by extension your clients.

3. Performance

Studies show that users often leave websites within the first 7 seconds of visiting. That is nothing! You have 7 seconds to answer the question your users are asking to keep them on your site. Can you afford to waste some of this time on waiting for your website to load? Obviously not.

With the increase in internet speeds over the years, websites became more complex and media heavy. Things have changed though now that mobile users make up the majority of internet usage, some of whom have poor internet connections.

Another factor is deprecated and outdated technologies, if your website is still implementing them some parts may not function as intended on certain devices or may not function at all.It is important to make sure your website loads quickly on any device and supports the latest trends in technology.

4. Confirm your existence

If your website still looks like it was designed 2 decades ago, people may question whether or not you are still a business. Your sites job should be to turn visitors into clients and if your clients aren’t completely sure you are a legit business, they will quickly walk the other way.

5. Usability

Things have a come long way in the past decade or two in terms of the way we use websites. The last thing you want is a user finding it hard to navigate your website or not being able to find what they’re looking for at all. Gone are the days of just making a website look pretty, no more complicated menu structures or infinite scrolling on your web pages. With the number of devices connected to the internet today and the amount of different sized screens, it is important to ensure it is usable for all.

#Invest #Webdesign #newwebsite #websiteupdate