Like the majority of people you’ve probably realized the importance of having a website.  You or your organization probably already has one, but it’s equally important for you to understand merely having one won’t do wonders for your business. 

You must have the RIGHT website. 

Now there are many things that make the “right” website but one rule that applies to everybody… Your website must keep up with the times!

Websites are like combination of technology with fashion.  Technology because the science behind them is continually evolving and progressing, every year new and wonderful innovations become available which can really help your business and enable your website to excel.  So as technology improves you can have something better than you could a couple of years ago.  Fashion, because design trends go in and out of style, so what looks good now might not look so good in a few years’ time.

However, that’s not to say you need a state of the art website with all the bells and whistles to succeed.  You just don’t want your website to become terribly outdated.

Some organizations have websites that look like they were designed in the late 90’s which could be limiting their websites potential as it would not be taking advantage of the newer technologies available. 

Now you may be thinking a statement like that is for the sole purpose of drumming more business, but it is true…  Some of the newer Internet technologies can genuinely help your website perform much better than it’s currently performing. Social Media Integration for example, enables you to capture leads and build an ongoing relationship with your prospects right from your website.  Or a Content Management System as another example, which allows you to update the content of your website without the need for a professional webmaster, or having to learn special skills and software.

Despite this some people are adamant their prehistoric website is adequate and there is no need to ever redesign it.   For example, we designed eight websites a client many years ago.  After a few years the websites began to look dated, as most websites do, so we suggested it was time to redesign and take advantage of the newer technologies.  The client disagreed because the websites were doing as intended so there was no need.

After a couple more years the client changed their mind for one of their websites.  This particular website was for a major event they hold annually and they sprang their decision upon us 5 weeks before the event… This was an 80+ page website with various layouts!

Nonetheless, the job got done on time.  To our client’s surprise the number of unique visitors jumped from around 11,000 to 20,167 visitors during the month in which the event was held.  That’s almost double the number of visitors! 

Maybe this near double in visitors was just a coincidence?  Highly unlikely because the client wasn’t employing any additional means of promoting their website in comparison to previous years.  In fact their website promotion is minimal at best so my client believed the huge visitor increase was attributed to the new website being far more pleasant to use.

This is why it’s important to measure the effectiveness of your website’s promotional campaigns.  If one particular method is bringing you a lot of visitors then you want to keep using and refining it.

However, in above example, redesign alone attracted more visitors, which was to be expected.  The new website was more user-friendly and looked much nicer so people were more inclined to use it, and of course tell their friends about it.  Yes, a fresh new website will produce word-of-mouth promotion if people like the new design.  

However, you should NEVER rely on redesign alone to attract more visitors!  There are many strategies for getting more visitors but that’s for another lesson.

So even if your website is currently doing well, would you prefer it to be just doing “well” or the BEST it possibly can?

If you feel your website might be getting a little outdated or could benefit from some of the newer technologies, don’t hesitate to us using the below form.  We’d be happy to give you free advice to help your website stay with the times!