Is now a good time for a website design update? If you have asked yourself this question more than once, the answer is probably yes!
Take a look at the image above created by one of the world’s largest Tech Firms about 10 years ago. Looks like an antique, doesn’t it?
You may think that we are just another pushy website design company that wants everyone to get a new, website design update for their business every few months. This is simply not true. What we do want is for businesses with solid marketing goals, to consider a website design update every three years. Unless, of course, it’s an antique business that wants to intentionally appear outdated and old fashioned.
Don’t get me wrong. I love antiques. I love the whole idea of the historical conservation of beautiful objects, but even an antiques dealer needs to display their items-for-sale in a way that potential buyers can appreciate the fine details.
3 Signs of an Old Website
Does your website still display Flash®?
This Adobe product used to be hugely popular among website designers for animating the homepages of websites. but today, Flash is not supported on many mobile devices. This means that when your website is pulled up on a phone, for example, there may be a big, fat hole right in the middle of the page where the Flash document is supposed to be.
Do your visitors still have to download content?
Do visitors need to view important information about your business in a PDF rather than viewing it on a web page? This makes them go through extra steps to read what should be available at the click of a mouse. No need for a long explanation here. In this age of viruses and hacking, no one wants to download anything they shouldn’t have to.
Is your website built using tables?
We have all been on those websites that display tiny boxes filled with mice type and unreadable content… usually in neon colors with uneven borders. (see the image at the top of this page)
Tables are the once-popular, but old fashioned way, of building websites. They are inefficient, inappropriate for designing mobile-responsive websites. Today’s website platforms, like WordPress, enable designers to display content in a way that pleases the eye of the visitor on whichever device that they use. More importantly, a modern website pleases the eyes of Google, which looks at your content and decides if it’s worth ranking highly… or even to display it at all in their search engine.
So, is it time for a website design update?
While you can be a seller of old things, your website should be a new thing. It has to be mobile-friendly, load quickly, accommodate video, play nicely with social media, and generally go with the flow of today’s fast-paced, web-based world.
