In today’s marketing landscape, especially online, a company’s business website is often the prospective client’s first impression. You can image that it is a rare purchase that happens today which doesn’t in some way begin online with some bit of customer research. Both B2C and B2B consumers find themselves not only starved for time but they are much more web savvy than ever. And this means the research tool of choice is a quick Google search.
Well before a prospective client will set an appointment or go into your business, they will scope your business out online. For this reason, when it comes to your business website, you must put your best foot forward. In many cases today, especially if your website is outdated, this may call for a professional business website redesign.
If you spend any time online yourself, you are likely to run into a lot of websites that even you think are not user friendly. They may be outdated and slow loading. Most companies feel that going through a redesign will be a hassle – we hear all kinds of excuses for not having updated a website including not enough time or money. We have also heard the excuse that there is no one in the office who is web savvy enough to maintain the website for them on a regular basis.
Unfortunately, letting a website site and go stale or having an old static website is no longer good for your business. It can do more harm than good and tell Google that your site is not a good result to visitors looking for products or services like yours.
If you’re website is outdated, you are basically saying that you don’t care what they see when they come to your website and that you may or may not follow up with them and your business has little attention to detail. If you think about it from a client’s perspective, you can see how that would look.
If your current web design is difficult to navigate, as in no real organizational page structure, your website visitors are simply going to get frustrated and leave for a more user-friendly experience. You will lose your potential customers on that first impression.
Going the DIY route or letting a “friend” do your business website redesign is a bad idea – we have seen many of our clients come to us after getting burned. You need a website that shows your company’s professionalism and functions the way you want it to.
If you are wondering whether or not your website is working for your business, check out these stats from around the web:
Websites with a blog overall get over 50% more traffic
Businesses who regularly update their blog obtain nearly 80% more followers on Twitter and other social sites
The top 2 factors that users say want when visiting a website is easy navigation and fast load times
Your business website is your introduction to your potential customers. How would you like to make your first impression?
