Reasons Your Business Probably Needs a New Website
There are approximately 1.12 billion websites online in 2023. However, while this is a humongous amount, in reality, only a small fraction of these are updated and used actively. According to surveys, less than 20% of all websites in the world are active. Is yours one of them?
Among the active and updated sites, only high-quality websites can have a fighting chance in the highly competitive digital sphere. This, naturally, brings us to ask you an important series of questions:
- Is your website meeting its purpose and supporting your business?
- Does it contribute to lead generation?
- Is it a compelling representation of your brand?
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If the answer to any of these is NO, it’s time for you to consider the services of a website designer. As a full-service digital marketing agency specializing in high-quality websites, NJ Local Marketing
understands the challenges of small businesses. So, if you are still on the fence and trying to figure out how long you should keep your current website before changing it, here are the key reasons why owners like you choose to invest in brand new small business websites.
Your Website Doesn’t Drive Lead Generation
What is the main purpose of every website? If you are thinking about information, you are missing out on the converting potential of a well-designed website. Having a website is all about capturing leads and growing your revenue. Small business websites need to be lead-generating machines that contribute to:
- Driving inquiries
- Selling products
- Booking services
- Starting the lead pipeline
- Sustaining your sales numbers
This means your website must meet two essential criteria in order to fulfill its purpose.
Firstly, it needs to be designed to support your business objectives. In other words, whether you are selling items online or using a quote system, visitors must be able to perform these actions from your website.
Secondly, the website must be driving new leads. Being equipped to create leads and being able to fill your pipeline are two completely different things.
The bottom line: If your website fails to deliver on this line, it doesn’t support your business effectively. This could happen for a variety of reasons. The most typical issues revolve around the fact that your site is unable to meet one or both of the above-mentioned criteria.
Your Business Is In A Different Space
We get it. Most businesses change over the course of their existence. Whether it is related to a shift in your business plan or a desire to reflect the most current market needs and wants, chances are the business you run today is not quite the one described on your website.
Additionally, the pandemic has massively contributed to business-shaking transformations. Perhaps, your services are different in a post-pandemic world. Or maybe your overall operations and vision have moved into a different mental space. The truth is that, if your business existed before the pandemic and has not yet received a new website, your website is more likely misaligned with your current activities, mission, and offering.
The first thing small businesses need to sustain growth is high-quality websites that reflect their brand identity, journey, and position in the market. Remember, your website exists solely as your digital business card. As such, you definitely want to make sure visitors can gain an accurate, relevant, and realistic representation of who you are, what you do, and how you can help them.
You Built It With a Template
Nowadays, there are hundreds of different self-build options for entrepreneurs to launch their first websites: Wix.com, Squarespace, WordPress.com, are some of the most commonly used platforms. There’s a very good reason for it: They worked and they allow you to rapidly build a functional site using some of the templates available. Besides, relying on a template enabled you to launch your small business site without breaking the bank. At NJ Local Marketing, we appreciate that many small business owners start on a shoestring budget. However, this can pose some issues going forward.
First of all, let’s be real for a moment. Templates are great for throwing organized content online. The problem when using templates is that they tend to get very noticeable. As such, they are better suited to personal websites. For businesses, the template ends up making your website look like every other.
Moreover, templated layouts tend to have an outdated look to them. As visitors are likely to have encountered the same template several times, they tend to not only ignore the website, but also assume that it contains only out-of-date information.
Unfortunately, many businesses rely extensively on templates because they believe they can’t pay for a website designer. At NJ Local Marketing, we do things differently. We guarantee you can have access to a professional, qualified, and experienced affordable websites designer who can create a unique layout and look and feel.
Your Business Website Wasn’t Built Professionally
Everybody has got a friend who’s good with computers. More often than not, their skills do not meet professional levels. But they are confident and can troubleshoot plenty of minor tech issues, from helping you change your broadband router password to setting up a brand new laptop. A tech mindset can be helpful, especially when you need help with new tools or technology. And while you have full faith in your friend’s good intentions, there is no denying the obvious. No matter how much they want to help you, they are never going to match the level of expertise and skills of an experienced website designer. But, on the other hand, they are cheap.
Now that your business has attracted several clients, it is time to move to the next level. Your business and your clients deserve a professionally designed website.
Why you want to put your digital presence in the hands of an expert:
- They follow web development best practices
- They understand how to ensure your website is indexed by the main search engines
- They create visually appealing pages
- They know how to ensure everything works as it should
- They ensure your website is safe from hackers
A website built by an amateur is not necessarily unappealing or malfunctioning. But in the long term, it will develop issues, which you can encounter because:
- The website is hard to update.
- The content management system is outdated.
- Plugins or layout elements are not supported and may break the page.
- Visitors data is exposed or the site data is exposed to cyber criminals.
- Search engines penalize websites that don’t adhere to W3C best practice.
You Manage It Yourself… And People Can Tell
Every business website consists of a front end and a back end. The front end is what your visitors see. The back end is for your eyes only. Think of it as the storage room of a retail store. Your customers are never going to set a foot inside the storage room. This might encourage you to relax about its appearance a little. However, there are many good reasons why you want a properly organized storage room:
- You can find what your customers need rapidly
- You keep track of every item you have in stock
- You can rapidly identify what needs re-ordering
- You don’t waste money on duplicates
- You don’t encounter damage for items in storage
Now, if you transcribe it into a website environment, the back end, aka the storage room, requires as much attention as the front end. Unfortunately, self-managed small business websites can be extremely tricky to keep up with. With little time on your hands and limited web development know-how, your back end might rapidly turn into a messy, cluttered, and impossible to navigate storage room:
- Your web pages are unorganized
- You have multiple unused plugins and building tools
- Your website is bloated with too many irrelevant pages
- You have many duplicate content blocks and pages
- Your website throws many errors, such as 404
Just like a messy storage room will inevitably affect the experience of your customers in-store, a messy back end will render your front end less appealing, engaging, and difficult to rank.
You Launched Without Any Strategy
Does a website really need a plan to showcase its content? Of course, the answer is yes. But for many small business websites, there was no time or understanding for a plan. Having a website is a point on your to-do list. But you have never considered the key aspects of high-performing, high-quality websites:
- A clear structure
- Hyper-focused and relevant content
- Engaging and compelling copy
- A digital journey for leads
- A unique story to tell
To put it into perspective, a lot of small business owners are too short on time and cash to run comprehensive market and competition audits. For many, producing a website is a task they fulfill by following their competitors’ lead. As such, it is not uncommon to find sites that are an amalgamation of competitors pages and basic pages, leading to:
- Non Homogeneous structure
- Confusing, non business relevant content
- Lack of engagement
- Absence of a digital sales funnel
- A non authentic story that sounds like every other
It is worth noting that up to
8 in 10 customers will visit small business websites before committing to a purchase. In other words, your website strategy can make a great deal of difference when it comes to customer acquisition. This will require not only defining the clear purpose of your website, but also the many ways you want visitors to engage with your website.
It Is A Walking UX Nightmare
What is user experience on small business websites? Every website designer will tell you that User Experience, UX for short, is the condition sine qua non that determines how likely visitors are to purchase from your brand. UX encompasses an array of web design avenues, including:
- Page load speed
- Navigation
- Content quality
- Accessibility via different screen sizes
- Accessibility from different browsers
- Calls-to-action clarity
- Engaging media formats
- Consumable layout
- Etc.
To put it in simple terms, UX refers to every aspect of the website that turns the visit into a positive experience. If at any point, visitors experience any hurdles, either due to a slow site speed or confusing calls-to-action, they are less likely to convert into customers.
What happens when your website delivers a negative user experience? The most common thing you’ll notice is a low or non existent conversion rate. This occurs because:
Customers don’t have time for your site to load. Over half of visitors abandon a mobile site if it doesn’t load in under 3 seconds. Besides, 2 seconds in delay can lead to almost 90% abandonment rates.- When the site doesn’t display properly on mobile or tablet or on their preferred browsers, most people go to a competitor site.
- When visitors don’t understand what they are expected to do, the website fails to generate leads.
- A short digital attention span requires highly engaging content and formats, including videos and images. Visitors exit sites that have no visual content.
- Making your navigation menu confusing or complex will drive people away because they can’t find what they need or want.
You’d Rather People Didn’t Use It
Your website is something you are ashamed of for a variety of reasons. As a result, you don’t use it at all and never encourage potential customers to visit it. At NJ Local Marketing, we understand how distressful an unappealing website can be. But if you believe your website is not in a state to support your business, the best thing to do is not to bury it under a digital stone and hope everyone forgets about it.
Your website acts as a digital window for potential customers shopping online. Just like shop retailers carefully select the best items for window display, you want your website to showcase the best of your business. So, if for whatever reason this digital window can’t fulfill its function anymore, it is your sign to reach out to a website designer and order a brand new website. Don’t let your website stay untouched and slowly fade into oblivion. You are wasting a huge opportunity to scale up your business with a high-quality site.
Besides, at an age where every business has a website, you can’t afford to run your business through phone calls, emails, or even social media interactions. Your website is one of the most important tools in your sales tool box. As such, you need to make the most of it at all times.
Your Website Has No Competitive Edge
When it comes to attracting new customers, you want to make sure your website can stand out from the crowd. The digital world is highly competitive. Brands compete in the search engine response pages of Google and Bing for visibility. And once visitors access your website, they are going to look for trust indicators that signal it is safe to do business with you. These are:
- Attractive layout
- Compelling content
- Visible trust factors (accreditations, testimonials, etc.)
Your layout will determine whether visitors are going to engage any further with the website. Almost
40% of visitors leave when the web layout is unappealing. So, the first impression matters, and when the first impression is negative, your website falls at the bottom of the pile. You have to remember that the attention span online is short. People do not want to engage for longer than a few seconds to make a first judgment of a site. Therefore, the biggest issue for low-performing business websites is putting visitors off by failing to display the expected trust indicators.
You Need A Brand New Start
How long have you had your current website? While its performance may still be within an acceptable range, the look and feel can begin to feel dated. Website design trends move fast. Therefore, rolling out a brand new design is the perfect opportunity for your business to:
- Keep your look and feel modern
- Earn the trust of your audience
- Impress new potential customers
- Elevate your brand and marketing strategies
- Reconnect with old clients
That’s why you want an experienced website designer on your side.
The consequences of a dated web appearance can be harmful. For a start, it is likely to affect the first impression of your site negatively. Additionally, potential customers tend to judge your business performance and quality of services or products based on what is visible to them, in other words, your website. If the look and feel seem outdated and non-aligned with the current design trends and stylish must-haves, visitors will come to the conclusion that:
- The business processes are out-of-date
- Services or products are not aligned with the current market needs and wants
- The business doesn’t keep on top of current best practices
- The business is potential a cyber security risk for customers who share their confidential data (via a form or online transaction)
- The business doesn’t use the latest tech
Are you sick of losing against high-quality websites? It’s time for you to join the club of small business websites that perform. With NJ Local Marketing, you’ll find a professional and affordable websites designer who can help you bring your digital presence to the next level.
Professionally Designed Affordable Websites
At NJ Local Marketing we create gorgeous high quality, professionally designed web sites that are sure to impress your visitors. We are small business owners ourselves and we understand how difficult and expensive it can be to run a small local business. We want to help you succeed with your small to medium business website by providing you with great digital products like websites, for affordable prices.
Small Business Websites
When we established NJ Local Marketing, LLC in March of 2018, we did so with the goal of providing the highest quality, custom designed websites, and digital marketing services to our small to medium local business clients. If you are looking for a website design company that will deliver a spectacular website at a great price, you are at the right place.
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