The importance of having a business website in 2021 cannot possibly be overstated.
Around 70% to 80% of customers exclusively do business with companies that they researched online first. This means that companies without a website are going to lose out on up to four out of five of their potential customers right off the bat.
Unfortunately, a surprising number of businesses don’t take the importance of having a good website design seriously. They don’t invest in their website’s look, functionality, and professionalism, and it is seriously harming their ability to build a strong brand and attract customers.
Data from 2019 shows that 36% of businesses don’t have a website at all. Companies that do have websites often have a number of issues with them. One of the biggest complaints that customers have about websites is that they are too outdated.
An outdated website could be hurting your company’s image and success
You need to pay close attention to your website. Does it look outdated? This could be hurting the future of your company for several reasons.
Customers are less likely to work with your company if your website is outdated
You could easily alienate customers by using a website that is not up to date. One poll found that 94% of customers do not trust websites that look outdated. You could be losing a ton of potential customers if it is not modernized. This is especially true if you are trying to be on the forefront of modern trends, such as sustainability. If you want to follow sustainable business practices, then you need to show that you are a company that stays up to date on new trends, which includes having an up-to-date website.
Your website might have data privacy issues if it is not kept up-to-date
Data privacy concerns have skyrocketed in recent years. The European Union created the Global Data Protection Requirement (GDPR) to ensure that companies do more to protect user data privacy. California and other jurisdictions have implemented similar data protection rules, which are now starting to be stringently enforced.
Outdated websites are often data security nightmares. For one thing, they often lack SSL certificates. This means that connections to these websites are not encrypted, which puts all data packets that exchanged over them at risk. You need to address this to make your business processes more secure and boost privacy.
You should seriously consider upgrading your website if it seems to have data security issues. You could face costly fines and a public relations nightmare if you are the victim of a data breach.
Your site might not be compatible with important tools
You also need to make sure that your website is able to provide all of the features that customers are expecting. You might find that most of your customers are looking for a website that provides social media engagement tools, unique machine learning capabilities and other features.
Older websites often lack the infrastructure to support these plug-ins and tools. You will want to consider making some upgrades if your website doesn’t provide these capabilities.
Compliance issues with major advertising platforms
You also need to make sure that your website is going to meet the complaint standards of major advertising platforms. This is an often-overlooked problem with having an older website. However, it is also a very significant one.
Google ads, Facebook, Pinterest and most other major advertising platforms have strict review processes in place. You need to make sure that your website is going to have a professional layout that matches their expectations. Older websites don’t usually have the aesthetics and technical requirements that they are looking for.
What should you do to make sure your website is modernized?
There are some important steps that you can take to update your website to have a more modern look and feel. You should seriously consider taking these initiatives to avoid the problems mentioned above.
The first thing that you should do is take a look at your hosting plan. You might need to upgrade your hosting to have a plan that supports larger websites that require greater bandwidth. Modern sites tend to be more data intensive, since they use more applications and collect more information on customers. This can also help make sure your site runs more quickly.
You might also want to use a professional web design service if you don’t have experience with web design yourself. Even if you have enough of a background in web design to create your own website, you are still going to need to make sure that you use the right graphics and tools. Canva and other imaging tools help make the aesthetics of modern websites a lot better.
You will also need to invest in an SSL certificate. This is one of the many things that you need to do to make sure your website is secure. It is the bare minimum that customers and organizations that you’ll work with, such as advertising platforms, will want to see as an assurance that your site is secure.
Your website needs a modern look
You can’t get by with an outdated website in 2021. If your site isn’t up to date, then you are going to want to give it a major overhaul. The fate of your company depends on it!
