4 Ways to Keep Your Website from Becoming Obsolete

The internet is in constant flux, which is why businesses from various industries are in fierce competition to stay relevant and visible amid the ever-changing landscape. Less than a decade ago, websites were once a medium that houses texts and links to other pages, similar to what you would call an electronic brochure.

Years pass and websites have evolved dramatically into a complex, highly-interactive application that serves as the face of your brand within the saturated, online landscape. It values web design, search engine optimisation, responsiveness, as well as speed above all else. Before the 2010s, companies had the option of opting out of establishing a site. Two years after that, websites became a critical component of the success of a business.

Outdated sites should keep up with the times as it can harm a business’s credibility and hard-earned reputation. To that end, here are ways you can keep your site up-to-date:

Tip #1: Add a CMS

A tell-tale sign that you’re behind the competition is when you still have to rely on your website designer to upgrade your site. In recent years, a plethora of sites that leverage CMS to ease user navigation emerged left and right. This makes it easy to add, edit, or remove information through an admin tool that even non-tech-savvy users can use. WordPress, for instance, is one of the most popular sites that use CMS.

Additionally, having a CMS to your site enables multiple people to access your site for content creation, administrative work, web design editing, and more. This makes posting and updating as quick as a click of the refresh button.

Tip #2: Make it Mobile Friendly

More than 90% of the world is using mobile when browsing the net, and most of the online traffic comes from web applications on hand-held devices. With the smaller screen dominating the media scene, establishing a responsive site is crucial to your ranking in search engines. This means that your content, be it a video, a high-quality set of images, rich text, or more, should quickly adapt to various mobile mediums such as tablets or smartphones.

Tip #3: Capture Visitor Information

Your email address is like your business card, and you should be ready to share it at any given notice. In that sense, all modern sites now have a feature that captures visitor information by offering special offers to those viewers who sign up using their email. How you will execute this opportunity is up to you; the crucial factor is that you follow up with credible discount emails to keep your customers from viewing your brand as a spammer.

Tip #4: Optimise Images and Videos for Better Speed

You can get away with buffering loading times a decade ago, but now, customers no longer tolerate slow sites. This is an immediate sign that pushes viewers to bounce off better sites, which is harmful to your ranking in search engines.

With that in mind, various online tools can determine your site’s bottlenecks and test your page’s load time. Be sure to optimise your images, videos, and any other rich media files by compressing their size. Similarly, some programs enable you to minimise their size without comprising its quality.

In Conclusion

In recent years, the look and feel of sites went through a huge make-over wherein most aim to enhance the customer’s user experience. Gone are the days where it was a glorified web catalogue, now it serves as the face of the company that bridges customers to their brand – be it for ordering online, viewing menus, research, or more. For that reason, keeping your site up-to-date is crucial if you want to stay on track with the digital world’s competition.

Contact LS25 Web Design

We are a Leeds based web development agency with many years of experience. We build custom websites for small and medium sized businesses at affordable prices. If you’re ready to discuss your web design project, get in touch with us today for a free 30-minute consultation. Call 0113 871 5925.