5 Reasons Your Raleigh Business Needs a New Website

Building a new website for your business is a big project. I talk to a lot of Raleigh and Cary business owners about new websites, and some agree it’s time. But they hesitate to take action. Why?

Well, creating a new website costs money and takes time. A new website may mean learning a new system or changing how you do things. Those are just some of the reasons business owners typically hold off on the project.

But if your marketing people are telling you it’s time for a new website, they aren’t just making stuff up. Here are five reasons your business may need a new website:

1. Mobile. Website creators used to build a website that looked good on a desktop or laptop and then a separate mobile site that looked good on phones and tablets. Today, it’s best to build just one website that is responsive, which means it responds to the size of the viewer’s device. Responsive websites look good on all devices. According to Google, 61% of users are unlikely to return to a mobile site they had trouble accessing and 40% visit a competitor’s site instead. (Source: MicKinsey & Company). In other words, you can’t afford to have an old website. Responsive websites also rank higher in search results. (See No. 2.)

2. Search results. The Internet has changed a lot over the years. The way your website is built is one factor affecting where you rank on search engine results pages. If your goal is to be on the first or second page for a certain search term, building a new website should be part of your plan.

3. Design standards. When you walk into your grandmother’s guest bathroom, you cringe at the pink toilet, right? Her avocado-colored refrigerator looks ridiculous. You may think of design as a trend to be ignored, but appearance matters. You don’t want your website to look stale. Some customers may not notice or care, but others are going to cringe at the pink toilet and decide they’d rather work with someone who stays current. After all, if your design is old, maybe your standards aren’t very high in other areas of your work.

4. Old practices now considered faux pas. Design best practices aren’t the only thing that has changed online in recent years. If your website has any of the following, you need to make updates:

a. Flash
b. Anything that auto plays
c. Wrong contact information or other, outdated information
d. No links to your social media
e. Slow load time
f. Awful pop-ups
g. A home page button (clicking your logo should take you to the home page)

5. Your website doesn’t convert. Websites are not just an online brochure for your company. Websites must also spur customers to take action. Your pages must have a call to action, something telling them what you want them to do. For example, call, sign up for a newsletter, contact us now for a 15% discount. Those are all actions that encourage prospects to stop browsing and start buying.

Questions about building a new website? Contact us for a free consultation about your web project.