A constantly updated website is one of the best ways to build a successful web presence. On the other hand, failing to acknowledge this need can be extremely detrimental to your business. Below you will find the top four reasons an outdated website can hurt your business. Recognizing these mistakes will allow you to avoid these practices when managing your website.
Credibility
An outdated website can destroy your credibility in just a few seconds. This is important to realize because when it comes to business first impressions matter. Most Internet users do a great deal of research about a business before they decide to do business with a particular company. If a user stumbles across an old outdated site, this will almost instantly destroy your company’s credibility. This happens because customers do research on a company to see what they are all about. Old information will leave the impression that the company is no longer in business or that the company has simply lost their touch. To avoid instantly losing credibility with customers and potential customers, it is incredibly important to update
Reduced Sales
If your website gives the impression that you are no longer in business, customers will simply move on to another website that sells similar products. In order to avoid losing sales to your competition, you need to make sure your website stands out. You can do this easily by routinely adding fresh content, and making sure your site stays updated. This will grab your customer’s attention, keep them coming back time and time again, and ensure your site’s credibility with potential customers.
Miss Out on Benefits of New Technology
An old, outdated site won’t utilize new technology. This means your site won’t benefit from social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Internet users love social media, in fact, nearly 140 million Americans are Facebook users, by not incorporating these functions in your website, your website is missing out on all the benefits of new technology.
In addition to social media integration, you will also want to update your website to ensure that it is available for use on the mobile web, includes Google Analytics to track visitors behavior, and contain a blog.
Affect Page Ranking
SEO algorithms are always changing. For this reason, it is important that your website constantly be updated to adhere to the new algorithms. A failure to update will negatively affect your page ranking. This occurs because dated coding such as iframes and sites made entirely of graphics, can be disadvantageous in search engines. Some search engines will even blacklist or penalize sites that don’t conform to proper SEO techniques.
By acknowledging the four reasons an outdated website can affect your business, you can gain credibility, increase website sales, reach tons of new customers via social media, understand your visitors needs, and make changes to accommodate visitors. Lastly it will help your site work your way up in search engine rankings, which will only help you grow your business more.