The last few weeks have thrown up a few interesting problems for many business owners.
WordPress has released a few major updates recently. These updates have required newer technology on the server, which many people didn’t have and didn’t even know they needed.
The result – Lots of people’s sites have just stopped working.
The solution is to upgrade the servers which fixes the issue. But then this creates another layer of problems.
The knock-on effect was that some of the sites we host for people were not compatible with the latest technologies.
We managed to fix the problems quickly, but this got us thinking… How do we stop this happening in future?
Well the solution is to regularly update your website. But how often is necessary to keep it fresh and up to do date?
Ideally, you should always be working on your site to keep it fresh, adding new content and new pages that support your marketing campaigns.
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But sometimes just refreshing the content isn’t enough. The design and technology can become outdated, and you’ll need to move on.
Here’s three reasons you should never let your website stagnate…
Design Matters – And It’s Constantly Evolving
Design impacts sales. There’s no denying that.
Design trends can change quickly and before you know it your once modern, fresh site can look old and tired.
Keeping the design of your website up to date and modern, with new fonts, images and content can help you to look current and more professional. I’ve been to sites where the site looked that old I was questioning if they were still in business!
Just one more thing. In 2016 the number of website visitors using mobile devices overtook those using desktop computers, and Google now penalises websites that are not mobile friendly. This means it’s essential that your site looks great and works perfectly on mobile phones and tablets, or you’ll be missing out on more than half your audience.
Old Technology Can Break Your Website
Web technology evolves at an alarming rate and new things seem to come out weekly! This means that your once-clean code might not meet modern standards. This can have a knock-on effect on your results, negatively influencing your search engine ranking or even bringing your site down!
The same applies to your website system (CMS). Some will be so out of date that they can’t be upgraded and will never work with the newer technologies you now need to introduce, resulting in a bad speed and pages crashing or not loading.
If you are building for the future you should look to build your new site into a platform that is scalable and future-proof.
WordPress is a great system for this but be wary – it requires a lot of maintenance and updates to the core system. Also plugins that you depend on can still become outdated and incompatible which can break your site.
You Need To Keep Your Marketing Up To Date
Your website’s job is to market your business. If your site is outdated it may not be able to do all that you require. You need to be able to connect your site to your CRM or email tool. You need to be able to optimise for SEO as well as being able to add tracking codes to measure performance.
Your old site could even be missing things as basic as calls to action, that the designers didn’t even know about when initially designing your site. An old site just can’t keep up with today’s marketeers.
So Should You Refresh Your Website?
I would say if your site is 3-5 years old then it’s time to seriously consider updating your website.
If you have a site and you’re thinking of updating, just let me know. I’ll walk you through our website refresh service which is a great way to get a modern, marketing-focused site for half the cost.
Speak soon
Thanks, Matt
