The Outdated Website. Out with the old, in with the new! That is a phrase that many of us are used to hearing when it comes to trends and fashion. But what about websites? If your website has become outdated, it could be costing you revenue, which means you can either get a professional website AMC or maybe it’s time to plan a new website. Outdated websites can mean two things: either you can't be found on search engines, or when you are found, visitors don't want to stay on your site because they think there is nothing of interest for them. There are many reasons why your business might be losing revenue because of an outdated website. This is why it is worth looking into the causes to get rid of them. Let's look at some very common issues.

1. Your website is not SEO Friendly

Keeping a website current is important; search engines regard websites with fresh content as more relevant to web users. Your website will continue to fall in the search engine rankings if you don’t update it. Outdated website content and technology are both culprits in this loss of business revenue. If your website is quite old, it might really not look like most recent websites look. Also, if the user interface is very old, you just can't make the right impression. Outdated sites may not be responsive or mobile-friendly - these are all things that affect SEO.Moreover, if the technology is obsolete, for e.g. if your website was made on Flash or has elements that need Flash, your website is on a dead technology. This also means your website cannot be crawled or indexed by Search engines. It’s vital to be able to update information on your site as well as adding new content, both of which are fundamentals for SEO. When your website is outdated, it can cost your business revenue. It's important to invest in a site that is SEO-friendly.

2. Your Site Loads Slowly

How many times has it happened that you click a website link and it takes forever to load, remember how long did you wait for the website to load? Not more than a few seconds, right? The longer it takes for a page to load, the more frustrated and likely customers will be to go elsewhere. But even if they do stick around on your site waiting, there’s still no guarantee that their conversion rate won't decrease as well.Also, a slow website doesn’t mean just frustrated customers, and a slow website also performs poorly in search engine ranking. Website speed is critical, so important that Google has made it an actual ranking factor. If your website site is slow, it may be pushed down to the second or third pages of the search results, which is certainly not good for any business. Consider if a site ranks on page 1, that the sites will see nearly 95% of traffic, and if your competitor is taking that spot, they are definitely taking much more business away.How can you test if your Website is Slow?Google Page Speed Insights (formerly known as Chrome Developer Tools) will give you an accurate idea of how fast your site is loading and what the speed optimization opportunities might be. Other than that, speed can also be tested by using a website such as Webpagetest.org, Pingdom, or GT Metrix.

3. Your Website is Not Responsive or Mobile-Friendly

Responsive or Mobile friendly, as the words suggest, means that the website adapts itself to the user's screen size for optimum viewing experience. Outdated websites are more likely to break into smaller screen sizes, making navigation and content difficult for customers viewing your site from their phone or tablet. If your website is not responsive, it not only affects the end-user experience but also ranks you down in search results.As of 2018, Google announced that they were migrating sites that followed best practices in mobile-first indexing. Mobile-first indexing means that Google now primarily crawl, index and rank the mobile version of the website. The percentage of mobile users has surpassed that of desktop users, which means more searches are being made from mobile devices than from desktop, which makes it highly critical for all businesses to have a website that is built for mobile devices too.

4. Your Site Can Be Easily Hacked

If your website hasn't been updated for a long time, it can be likely to get hacked quite easily. The article 'Top ways websites get hacked by spammers' outlines ways that a website can get hacked. The following are three directly connected points to an outdated website;

1. Missing security updates:This means old software that hasn't been updated may be missing an essential patch to account for a serious vulnerability. Attackers actively keep looking at old software with vulnerabilities. Letting a vulnerability on your website go untreated could increase the chance of your site being attacked.
2. Insecure themes and plugins:Outdated plugins may be out of date and insecure. Outdated themes are not updated to account for security loopholes that have been patched in the latest version, which means you're vulnerable.
3. Security policy holes:Weak passwords can leave you open to hackers, also giving admin access freely to users who might not need it, and not enabling HTTPS on your site can be of great security risk.

5. Your Website is Ugly or Old-Looking

If, by any luck, your website is able to make it to page one of the search results and a prospect clicks on your website link, what do you think will happen? They would leave your website and move to a competitor’s website. People judge bad websites instantly and mercilessly.If your website is not up to date with the latest design trends or has outdated content that does not reflect today’s customer's wants and needs, it could be costing you revenue. Outdated websites lead prospects away from your business; as soon as they land on your site, they immediately judged based on the following:

• Outdated layout style.
• Poor quality images and graphics.
• Outdated fonts or typography.
• Flash content that doesn't play.
• Weak, dated, or no content.
• Outdated navigation or design.
• Lack of responsiveness or mobile compatibility.

These are just a few obvious points people judge at a very glance. If you want your prospects to engage with your website, it important not just to upgrade your website for once but to consistently keep it updated.

6. Your Website is Not User-Friendly

How bad it can be if a prospect wants to find some information about your service or product on your website but can't. Broken or bad navigation can mean more severe than thought. Just imagine that the prospect makes all the way to your website through the search results out of all the other competitors’ websites just to get blocked by bad navigation. Outdated navigation also lacks responsiveness or mobile compatibility. This is a very obvious flaw that people judge at a very glance.A few ways broken navigation might be affecting your website are;

• Way too many links are appearing in the Main Menu bar, making it confusing for users.
• Links appear on large screens only; as a result, mobile users can't fully browse through the website.
• Links don’t differentiate anymore from the rest of the text; hence users can't access important information.
• Unimportant links appearing in the primary navigation menu, making it difficult for users to select the important ones.

Poor website navigation remains a top factor in visitor frustration and should be overlooked.How can you fix broken navigation on your website?

7. Content Expectations Have Changed

The way we communicate online has evolved, and so has how a website's content does with its visitors. Outdated content on a website is not helpful for the user. Instead, it leaves them frustrated and wondering if they should continue to explore your site or not. Out of date content can also cause visitors to bounce from your site faster than you think.Content that has been updated with fresh information will experience fewer online bounces as well as have higher customer engagement. Missing out on content update means also doing on SEO front as well. Outdated content will cause your site to rank lower and could be missing out on potential traffic. Just imagine if your next customer might be doing a search online for your services right now. Do you think your content is good enough to be ranked in Search Engines?

Conclusion

If the points above sound familiar, we’ve got some advice for you. Your website promotes your business 24/7, and it needs to be taken seriously by your prospects. You might have already realized that your website needs an update, do your business justice by having your website redesigned and see the difference.It is never too late to improve on something. Our team of expert designers and developers at Parashift Technologies have the experience and skills to help you. Contact us today to talk about how we can build a robust website for your business.

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