Is Your Website Design Beginning to Look Like a 80s Fashion Disaster?

Websites and the Internet are blends between real estate and fashion. It’s like real estate because the virtual world is so important these for business that you need an address and home, but because of its lower-cost of ownership, the styles get outdated like fashion trends. To add yet another twist, Internet technology is constantly changing and functionality and usability gets better all the time. What does this mean to you? Everything, if you want your website to help boost your company’s profitability.

First, let me clarify the function of a website for anyone who hasn’t updated since say 1999. I make this assumption because if you haven’t updated your website in 5 years, you are losing customers. When they visit your website it won’t look updated so they may not trust the website or company, the functionality and usability of the different technologies won’t be in place, and overall this affects your sales. Here is the purpose of a website: increase sales (whether or not your website is e-commerce enabled). Don’t feel alone, the majority of businesses need a website redesign. The good thing is most of them aren’t reading this.

Most of the businesses doing well on the Internet redesign their website every year to make sure everything appears up-to-date and that functionality is updated and the website easier to use. I’m not saying you have to redesign every year (although it won’t hurt), every 2 years should suffice. At the very least, main content that is outdated should be updated (it is perfectly acceptable to have old articles and news in an archive of your website, but let the customer be the judge of accessing this content).

In the booming dot-com days, the Internet wasn’t really a profitable place to be, yet everyone wanted to be doing business there. Today the Internet is profitable, the stakes are much higher, and millions of businesses are competing for top placement. Your website needs to work for you like one of your employees, so it needs to add value. Give your website a job in the marketing department. Make sure it follows in line with your marketing plan, and use it as a tool to help you increase sales, customer retention, competitiveness, and visibility. Begin to track stats about your visitors (where they come from, who they are, etc.). When you know this key information, you can redesign a website that gives your visitors exactly what they need and what they want.

Collect email addresses and send them only the valuable content they trust from you. Give incentives for people to return to your website, and participate in your business. Offer special prizes or discount codes. The more they participate, the more they will be comfortable with you and trust what you have to say.

Streamline your website by making it quicker to load. The quicker the website loads, the faster your customer will get the information they need. Trust me that will impress them and make them want to come back. No one wants to sit and wait a couple of minutes for your product information to load when all they want to do is make a quick comparison with a competitor.

Make sure your content is optimized for search engines. If a website redesign is long overdue, then this is very important because chances are no one is finding your website and this is hurting you. Also add testimonials to your website. Nothing makes people trust you more than the great experiences with your past and recurring customers. Make sure the information available on your website is the same as your offline marketing effort. Smart money says they should match and complement each other.

Last but definitely not least, update the look of your website. Update the colors, shapes, and layout to what is current. Update your navigation to something more attractive and user friendly.

The key to a successful website is functionality, usability, visibility, and credibility. The goal: increased sales.