Hey, there fellow internet dwellers! In today’s fast-paced digital world, having a website that looks like it’s stuck in the early 2000s is a surefire way to turn potential customers away. Your website is often the first impression someone has of your business, so it’s important to keep it up-to-date and looking sharp. In this blog post, we’ll be sharing the top 6 reasons why you should update your website. So grab a cup of coffee (or tea, we don’t judge), and let’s dive in!
Reason #1: Upgrade technology
Internet technology is a rapidly developing and constantly changing field. The goal of any new tech stack is to make websites better: faster, simpler, lighter, and more secure. And if you upgrade your website to adopt these new technologies — at least those relevant to your business — you’ll always provide your users with the best possible service and user experience, earning a good reputation and good profits.
Reason #2: Follow design trends
Design trends change often, and while there’s an appeal to appearing old-school in some niches, plain old isn’t the same as old-school or retro. If you don’t keep your eye on design trends, you’ll start losing customers in no time. Or you’ll stop attracting new ones, which, depending on your business, can be even worse.
On the other hand, if you redesign a website for your business from time to time — when the trends are relevant for your business — you can pull in new customers who were “just passing by.”
Reason #3: Improve loading speed
One of the main problems in our everyday lives is that we don’t have enough time to do everything. No one will hang out on a website that takes too long to load. In fact, slow loading speed is the number one reason for a high bounce rate.
A number of things affect page loading speed. One of them is, of course, the way the page is coded. If you check out the latest trends in web development technology, you’ll see that a great number of them are aimed at making pages load faster. Website updates that employ new technologies can lower your website’s bounce rate and improve your Google ranking.
Reason #4: Ensure data safety
It’s all about data safety today. Users’ personal and financial information is often digitalized and stored on website servers. For example, your medical history is likely stored on the servers of your healthcare provider. Outdated security measures will cave under modern hacking attacks, and sometimes, even a year-old technology can be outdated. A hacked server can be used for spam.
Moreover, all the user data on it will be compromised and even stolen if you don’t keep up with the newest means of data protection. Regularly updating your website and content management system (CMS) is a must, and if your website uses custom-built security, see that it’s compliant with the latest standards.
Reason #5: Provide flexibility
Today, if your website doesn’t have a mobile version, you can just throw it away. According to Statista, in 2021, over half of all website traffic (54.4%) was mobile-generated. Globally. Granted, in some countries, this number will be lower. But in others, it will be higher. This trend has led to what we now call mobile-first website development. As the name suggests, it’s when websites are created for mobile initially and are later adapted for desktop browsers.
Even if you have a separate mobile app, your website still needs to adapt to mobile screens; otherwise, you face the very serious danger of losing potential customers. If your business has been around for some time and your website is several years old, you need to optimize it for mobile ASAP. Since old technology didn’t allow for mobile optimization, old sites may be displayed incorrectly on mobile devices.
Reason #6: Improve your search engine rankings
When should you update your website’s SEO settings? Well, major changes to Google’s search engine algorithms happen approximately every half a year, so you can start with tracking those. But smaller changes to Google’s algorithms can happen at any time. Sometimes, we see iterations every couple of weeks; other times, there are several months of calm before the storm.
Changes in search algorithms can affect your website’s ranking in search results, so it’s important to refresh your website regularly if you want to rank higher than your competitors. And it’s challenging to comply with all the new demands set out by search engines if you’re using old technologies.