I will entirely skip the question do you need a business website at all since that was the question you should ask in 2010 at the latest. I'll presume that few years back you got a brand new website for your business, or even you built one by yourself, and I'll also assume that it was a good site at the time. So why should you even think about the new website?
1. Is Your Business Website Responsive?
Perhaps you heard the words “responsive” and “non-responsive” when a website is mentioned. In short, it means if a website will look and work the same on all devices – mobile phones, tablets, and computers. Why is that so important? Because starting from the end of 2014 more than half Google searches comes from mobile devices. Half of your clients will visit your business on the internet from a mobile device. If you want to check how your website looks on different devices, I suggest you to visit Responsinator.com and check it out.
2. Is Your Business Website User-Friendly?
It is sometimes hard to define what “user-friendly” is, but let's take some emergency 24/7 service for example like a locksmith business. The question you need to ask is what will 99% clients want to see first? Average locksmith client will look for the phone number! And he'll quickly decide if it looks like legitimate business or not based on the first impression.
Now, imagine someone who is locked out of his home at 2 am. He lands on locksmith's business website and with some luck see a phone number. But phone number is part of great logo design – so he'll either need to memorize it or write it down to call. I'd bet that he'll just find a website where he can click on the phone number and make a call!
The devil is in the details! Clickable phone link is one of the things your website must have.
3. How Fast is Your Business Website?
If it takes a long time to load your website, it is possibly due to old website software. Nobody likes a slow site, and your visitors will leave rather than wait for it to load.
Most likely you don't need a bunch of high-resolution, uncompressed pictures though they might look beautiful they will heavily slow down your website.
You can do a quick test of your website speed with Google Speed Check tool.
4. Is Your Website Keeping or Losing Clients?
This might sound strange, but most websites are losing customers. Why? Because someone will visit your site, find the info he was looking for (or not) and… And nothing! He'll leave and most likely never come back again. If you think that there is nothing you can do about it, you are wrong. You can invite visitors to leave their contact info, join your mailing list, etc. The best part is that you can use this system for free! We'll post an article about this soon.
5. On-Site Contact Form, Business Location on the Map?
People who are visiting your business website expect to see familiar things there, like contact form and map with your business on it. Most of them will never use it, but not having something that all the other websites have may raise doubts if you are a credible business. The first impression is what will drive clients to you or chase them away!
6. Technical Stuff
Many older websites used or were based on flash, an outdated web technology, that can't be used on most mobile devices. In short, if you have it, people can't visit you from mobile devices, and you are losing clients!
There are other things like SEO (Search Engine Optimization), site maps, social media links, etc. we could talk about, but each one of them requires whole new article just for basic understanding.
The list doesn't end here. Those are just some of the things why your business might need a new website. We'd love to hear your thoughts on this subject!
