Why your Four Year Old Website Could be Hurting Your Business

Responsive Website Design

April 5, 2018

Yes, I really did say four years old. Websites are not a one time deal. They are not something you build once and never think about again. Why you ask? Plain and simply, technology and trends are always changing. You may now be thinking, but how does that affect my small business? I am not concerned with being trendy.

Technological Advances

Over the last three to four years, we went from desktop ready websites to all websites needing to be mobile-friendly. What does this mean? Quite simply, this means that your website needs to size down to fit on any device and preferably look nice on any device. More people use cell phones to search the internet these days. Desktops usage is now in the minority. “According to official Google statements, more than 50 percent of search queries globally now come from mobile devices” (https://searchengineland.com). If your website is not mobile-friendly than often potential customers will leave your website and go to the next company. Nobody likes having to scroll sideways around a website. Our attention span and patience level are not high enough to spend more than a few seconds on an older website.

It is not only customers who don’t like your older sites. Google may rank your business lower than other businesses in your market for not being mobile responsive, which could mean missed opportunities to be found via the internet. Seem important, yet?

Staying up with the Latest Trends

If you just read all that and said, “Whew, my website is mobile-friendly. I’m good.” You might want to think again. Staying up or at least making an effort to keep up with the latest trends will help you to gain new business for a couple of reasons. First, a new customer wants to know that you are really invested and taking your business serious. People tend to think older websites are either hobbyists or getting close to retirement, which is probably in direct opposition to growing your business. Second, Google and other search engines will give your website a bump in rating for making changes to it. They want to know that the website is active and not been abandoned because why list an abandoned website on the top search result page. Some businesses, make periodic small changes or even write blogs to keep their website active.

One Last Note

If you still are not convinced that your website might need an update or be ready for a rebuild, here are my parting thoughts. Hackers are constantly thinking of new ways to attack websites and if your website has not had an update in a few years than it is vulnerable to attacks. Maybe the attack will just affect your website or it could have a virus that could affect your computer and those of your customers. Spreading a virus to a potential or existing customer is probably not the parting gift they wanted from viewing your website.

The Bottom Line

You might be wondering well how old is old? Roughly you want to make changes to your website every few months and full rebuilds every 2-3 years. The old adage, “It takes money to make money” seems like a fitting end.

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