We’ve established that a website needs regular maintenance if it is not to slip into a state of digital decay. But sometimes the little fixes are not enough to keep it in good health, and it’s time for more radical surgery. How do you know when that time has come? |
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| 10 Good Reasons to Rebuild Your Website Today: |
| 1. The goals of your business are changing: |
| Your website needs to at least be as current as your latest business plan. If your business is exploring new directions and strategies, your website must reflect that, or you’ve lost some great business opportunities. |
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| 2. The browser your site used is now obsolete: |
| If your website was built 5 years ago, there is a good chance that some part of it may not even be visible to many of today’s web users, as it was optimized on a browser that is now obsolete. It’s also important to make sure that recently built websites function properly and look right in the older browsers, which many people still use. |
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| 3. Your site relies on Flash animation: |
| The main objection to Flash as a web-development technology was that its architecture prevented sites built with it from being indexed by search engines. Today, even though Flash has begun adapting its architecture to Search Engines, it is still invisible to Apple’s mobile platform, so for iPad or iPhone users, plan to rebuild your site as soon as possible. Also, all those unnecessary bits of animation (“Loading…..” for example ) are just annoying and make your site look dated and clumsy.
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| 4. Your site doesn’t work on mobile devices: |
| The growth of the mobile industry is unprecedented, and has serious implications for your business. It is expected that by 2012, the number of smartphones in the world will exceed the number of personal computers, and mobile devices will become the main web platform. Technology is changing rapidly, and if you don’t begin the process of making changes to your web presence now, you will find the transition much harder later. |
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| 5. Your site does not have up-to-date search engine friendly content: |
| Your site needs to be filled with frequently updated, indexable, search engine friendly content. Many older websites did not focus on SEO and were instead filled with images or text that search engines ignored, and it’s not surprising that they failed to deliver the business they should have. Today’s digital marketing strategies demand more focused content. |
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| 6. Your database has now exceeded the scale for which it was built: |
| If your website is a few years old and you have been adding weekly news items, creating 4 or 5 Case Studies a year, publishing 2 Blog posts a week, and receiving many Form submissions, then it is likely that all this activity is expanding your database beyond the level it was designed for. This can create significant problems with performance and reliability, and is a good reason for a rebuild.
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| 7. Your site has stopped generating leads: |
| It may be time to look at that generic ‘Contact Us’ form on your website and evaluate your entire web strategy – is it time to have a presence across other Social Media? Should you have more Calls to Action across the website? Does the entire website drive conversion rates (from casual visitors to actual customers who will buy a product or service, sign up for a newsletter, or ask for an appointment)? Time to start rethinking the functionality of your website.
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| 8. The add-on features on your site are confusing: |
| Many companies try to keep abreast with the demands of rapidly changing technology by adding on features to their old websites. When there are many third-party plugins and numerous data repositories, it significantly affects the user experience. With many features all crammed into the Home Page, the user can be confused enough to not bother exploring further. It is then time to rebuild with simplicity of design and ease of navigation as the watchwords.
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| 9. You cannot edit your current site: |
| If you can’t edit your present site, there’s no excuse not to start the rebuild straight away and regain control over your website. You need to be able to manage the digital impact of your website and your business.
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| 10. Your expectations of cost and benefit from the site need a rethink: |
| If you expect millions of bucks worth of business out of your website, but paid only a few hundred to build it, something is very wrong. Conversely, a website built for peanuts may be possible, but it will never be an effective or reliable platform for a company that plans to be a serious contender in its field. In today’s economic environment, it is even more important to allocate part of your budget to expanding your web capabilities in order to stay ahead of the curve and let your business continue to grow.
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| Take a long and critical look at your current website and ask yourself whether it has the ability to meet all your needs both at present and for the foreseeable future. If the answer is No, then it’s time to start a Rebuild!
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