We’ve seen both sides of the fence – people who just built a site and want to redo it again, for whatever reason, and people who have a ten year old site, and don’t want to re-build. Some just aren’t sure and make a decision based on a lack of understanding, while others don’t see the value.
Here, we’re going to try to help you to determine if and when it’s the right time to rebuild your company website.
Eye Appeal – Visual effects and Photoshop techniques have greatly changed over the last 10 years. What was once appealing is no longer. What was once impossible is now important not to leave out. It’s crucial that your website is up to par with the design. Many HTML5/CSS techniques can be used to produce smooth gradients, fonts, borders, shadows, etc. All these new techniques can create a design that is less heavy on imagery (slower load time), and rely more on CSS coding (faster load time).Just as clothing fashions come and go, so does website design. If your “company site” is “wearing a sweater from 1999”, what does that say about the company? Have you let yourself go? Your clients are sure opt to think so.
Improved Technologies – Chances are when you built your website, unless it was in the past 6 days, newer technologies are available. Technologies such as AJAX and JQuery allow you to make smooth transitions and replace older technologies such as Flash, with many benefits. One benefit, for example, is that with AJAX you’re actually displaying images and text. This means you can have images rotate in and out with text appearing on the image, and it can all be seen by the search engines. Before this could only be done with Flash, and Google would just see one “flash file”, and not images and text, which help your site to rank much better. Also, AJAX can be seen on many devices where Flash can’t, such as iPad, iPhones, etc.
Social Media – You’ve read our Social Media blog articles, such as Social Media: The Gateway to Improved Customer Service and Benefits of Integrating Social Media Into Your Website (if you haven’t, you should do so at the conclusion of this article), you should know that a Social Media absence for your company could greatly result in your competition having a big edge on you. Whether it’s to deepen your customer service relationships, keep customers up to date with specials and promotions, letting your products and services be self-marketed, or keeping up with your competitors, having social media integrated into your website is a must. If there is no trace of Social Media on your company website, that’s a good sign that it might be time for a revamp.
SEO Friendliness – As time goes on, people begin to find ways around Google’s ranking systems, and begin to cheat the system. As a result of people starting to use spam techniques such as keyword overload, Google’s ranking system begins to get watered down. Google and the other search engines obviously hate this, and that’s why Bing’s motto is now “Preventing search overload”. To prevent these techniques that are being used, Google & others are developing more complex algorithms to rank your website. It’s crucial to keep up with the components that these algorithms are using. For example, search engines are now using META OG tags to learn more about what’s on the website. OG stands for Open Graph, and can describe web 2.0 elements on the website, see where your website/company is located, etc.
The above are just a few of many reasons why it might be time for a new website. Should you still wonder if it’s time for you to get a new website, give us a call or shoot us a message and we can evaluate your current website with you and discuss what direction will be best for you!
Basch Solutions, LLC – a Rochester Web Design andWebsite Development company, has been building websites, consulting with clients, and improving company's online presence since 1999. Have a look at their portfolio to see some of the many success stories they boat @ www.baschsolutions.com/portfolio.
