Just because your business is 10 years old, doesn’t mean your website should be.

The truth is, a lot of things age well in time—like wine, friendship, and dogs (haha). However, a website is not one of them. Many businesses in this digital world we are living in are blind to even the simplest of changes in their overall marketing. Over time, your business may not have changed much, and you may still hold the same values, the same price points, and even some of the same employees.

So Many Changes, So Little Time

Here are a few changes to be on the lookout for. Your web audience shifts and evolves over time as buying trends change consistently with the market and varied tools that become available or defunct.  Along with your web audience, there will always be technical changes to look out for such as design standards, HTML coding practices, content management system (CMS) platforms, Google AdWords best practices, security requirements, SSL considerations and much more. Being mobile friendly (where your website looks just as great on a smartphone as it does on a desktop) can also impact your business in a positive way; a change that has only come in the past few years.  These are just some of types of changes we saw in the last 12 months – consider for a moment the breadth of changes seen over a 5 (or 10!) year span.  All of these changes can dramatically impact the traffic to your website if not kept updated appropriately.

Popular Website Myths… Busted

You know when you buy a new shirt, and you want to wear it right away—that night even? You’re fed compliments on an immediate basis, but then it just goes back in your closet. You feel the immediate impact of spending the money, and you feel satisfied. This is how much of human nature works. Upon investing in a website, a business may not feel the immediate financial impact, but through momentum and time they will start to see a worthy return on investment. Many business owners are turned off by spending money on a website overhaul because they might be thinking one of these thoughts:

• “I’ll just use social media instead. It’s so much better!”
  • Social media is great! But it’s not better or worse than a website – it’s a different concept entirely, one that serves a different purpose. Social media is a fantastic customer engagement tool that provides richness to the experience that websites can’t.  Conversely, websites are an ideal information resource that provides depth of information and rich context into buying decisions that engagement alone cannot do.
• “It costs so much to get a website. I should just build one myself!”
  • While it’s true that you can build a website yourself, or even get one for very cheap, the end result will be a reflection of the investment you made. What is the cost of having an improper tool that doesn’t do what you want it to do?  Lost opportunity?  How many sales would you have to lose out on before you could be convinced that investing properly is a more savvy decision for your business?  There are many very reasonably priced options on the market today with a vast number of providers at all price points.  If you cull your wish list to the most important “top 5” list – you can generally find a top quality website for a very attractive price, one that belies your fantastic end result.
• “The cost (or burden) of maintenance is too great – it’s unavoidable.”
  • If your website is built properly, the burden of maintenance can all but disappear. Tools exist that make website maintenance take minutes, and provide businesses with almost complete autonomy.  For more complex updates, websites built properly on the correct platforms allow service providers to make complex changes in short time, thereby reducing your costs.  These days, you’re at a tremendous advantage.

There is a dizzying array of myths out there about websites, with just as many counter-arguments to bust them.  The bottom line is this:  don’t believe the hype or give in to the fear of the unknown.  A qualified partner will take the mystery out of website projects, provide education and give you solid facts and information with which to make decisions.

A New Website Doesn’t Have to Be a Headache

At Vision Advertising, we collaborate with business owners on developing a website that not only suits their needs as the owner and their vision (pun intended), but their audience as well. We thoroughly consider the market they serve, their competition, and look ahead at trends to ensure that what we build for them will provide for them in years to come.  As experts in search engine marketing, social media, and web development and design, we can help drive traffic to your website and to your business.

Did you like this article and would like to explore more about this topic?  We’d love to talk to you.  Get in touch – we provide complimentary website evaluations and can help you build the plan that helps you get where you want to go.  Reach us here.