Eight good reasons to upgrade…
The power of a website comes from the people using it, not the people making it –…
In this article, we will discuss the important question of why you need to upgrade an existing site. After all, the site already exists, it is filled with data, installed on the server, visitors come to the site. Indeed, at first glance there are no problems, especially if the site was created and filled with data relatively recently, say, only five or seven years ago. You are constantly working on the site, updating its content: product descriptions and prices, adding publications. Is this really not enough? Why create seemingly unnecessary difficulties for yourself?
Alas, the realities of the market dictate an unambiguous answer: the site must be updated periodically. And it doesn‘t really matter whether we are talking about a large corporate portal, an online store with high traffic, or a modest personal website. In all cases, the site owner should read this article to the end and decide whether to update the site right now or wait a little longer with the update.
If you try to briefly formulate the reason why you need to make an effort to ensure that your site is always up-to-date, you get this text. Every day more and more people devote their work and personal time to online technologies. Regular and periodic site updates create all the conditions for your business to keep up with the times, so that it has time to respond to the growing needs of your customers, so that your products and services are at the top, so that your business does not lag behind competitors. Conversely, by refusing to update your site, you create the conditions for losing the competition.
So, let‘s take a closer look at the main reasons why you need to regularly update your site. In addition to the list of reasons, it is necessary to separately consider the need to update the content of the site (content), its appearance, as well as the technological core (the so-called engine). These or other components may be more or less important, depending on what the main function of your site is. But, in any case, we should not forget about anything. As they say, it‘s all about the little things.
Reason one: engine updates
Internet technologies are evolving at a galloping pace. Accordingly, the criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of certain steps are also changing. Ultimately, however, the underlying factors remain the same. Any changes in technology pursue the same goals: to make the site faster, simpler, more economical and more resistant to hacking. And no matter what improvements you make, the goal is the same. Website developers try to provide visitors and users with as many new features as possible, increase the popularity and traffic of the site, and ultimately earn more money.
Reason Two: Brand Improvement
Coming up with a good brand for a business is not an easy task. But it is even more difficult to improve the existing, seemingly already familiar and successful company name. However, if you manage to find an even more accurate brand name, it will no doubt attract a ton of new visitors to your site. Moreover, as scientific studies show, a successful brand for a profitable business is much more important than an optimal market strategy. The rationale for such a conclusion lies in the bowels of the human psyche, and is beyond the scope of this article.
Reason three: fashion is changeable
Keeping up with changing fashion means always being at the top of the list of competing companies. No matter how useful the content of the site is, if its pages do not look modern, then all your efforts will be wasted. If you do not update the appearance of the site, then you can lose visitors in just a few years.
When it comes to fashion design, there‘s more to consider than just color schemes and graphic elements. The concept of fashion design is much more capacious. For example, in the last decade, the design of living spaces has been striving for simplicity and emptiness. So web designers came to the conclusion that the pages of the site should not be cluttered with unnecessary elements, but, on the contrary, the visitor could focus on the main thing without being distracted by unnecessary details.
Another important factor was and remains the animation on the pages of the site. Although, here, as in many other cases, in no case should you overdo it, otherwise the opposite effect will occur and site traffic will decrease.
Reason Four: Speed Up Your Website
The main thing that each of us constantly lacks is time. No one would use a site whose pages open for a few seconds. However, an even more important point is the fact that search engines place slow sites at the end of the search results list, as a result of which the resource traffic drops to almost zero.
The page loading speed of a website depends on many factors. The main factor is the technology on the basis of which the site engine works. Every year there are more and more content management systems. For all popular CMS update packages are released. A timely transition to a productive engine, or a timely update of the CMS version of the site will allow you not to lose the position of the site in the search results, and, therefore, not to lose visitors.
It should be remembered that the technology of the engine is far from the only factor that can be the reason for the poor performance of the site. In addition to the engine itself, the site template should be updated. In addition, it is necessary to ensure that users do not post excessively large images on the site. Cumbersome interactive interfaces also do not contribute to good page loading speed.
Reason Five: ensure safety
Apparently, there are no people left who would not have heard that someone lost one or another digital data. And those who never fell victim to a computer virus simply do not exist. An Internet site often contains a large amount of personal and financial information. That is why a huge army of intruders, they are often called hackers, spend a lot of time at the computer, trying to hack your site and gain access to confidential data.
Gaining access to personal data is not the only goal of hackers. If your site is hacked, it can become a source of spam. Millions of Internet users will receive letters about sales of anything. In addition to damaging your reputation, your hosting provider may block your site for spamming.
So, it is necessary to take measures, the main of which is the timely updating of the engine. If the site engine is not updated for a long time, it becomes vulnerable to hacker attacks. According to experts, a site that has not been updated for a year is vulnerable to attacks by hackers.
As we can see, updating the site‘s software is not an end in itself, but the most important preventive measure that significantly reduces the likelihood of hacking. Sometimes specialized non-standard security systems are installed on the site. Obviously, a non-standard means of protection is a priori more reliable. After all, the more common the security system, the more willing to crack it. Therefore, it is very important that the webmaster also updates the security system when updating the site engine.
Reason sixth: providing flexibility
Today, if your site does not have a mobile version, then it is best to forget about this site and make another one, from scratch. According to some studies, more than half of all Internet sites are adapted for mobile devices for now.
Interestingly, the methodology for designing a website layout has changed over the past decade. Now the mobile version is being developed not as an addition to the desktop version, but as the basis of the site. Finally, designers create a site layout for desktop monitors on the basis of the finished mobile version.
Even if you ordered a mobile application for yourself, do not neglect the production of a mobile version of the site. Otherwise, you may lose a significant portion of your website visitors.
Reason seventh: growth of positions in search results
How long have you been doing search engine optimization for your site? It should be remembered that the Google search engine updates the ranking algorithm almost every six months. All the time the Internet giant makes small changes in the algorithms, sometimes it happens once a week. That is why you should regularly update the site content, page meta tags. Otherwise, the position of the site in the issuance of search engines may deteriorate significantly.
The focus should be on the content of the site. Studies show that the Google has recently significantly increased the impact of content quality on the position of the site in search results. Here are three main principles, following which you will be able to maintain high traffic to your site:
- Beneficial purpose: site creators must first of all pursue the interests of the visitor;
- E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness): the content of the site should inspire confidence and be the result of the practical experience of the authors of the site;
- YMYL (Your Money or Your Life): information posted on the site should help visitors make important decisions regarding their financial and production activities.
Reason eighth: ensure integrations
There are an unimaginable number of plugins on the market, using which you can quickly and efficiently equip the site with one or another useful functionality. It can be paid, freeware or shareware. In all cases, your website engine should allow easy integration of such plugins.. Here are just some of the improvements that will be useful for your site:
- Social media buttons;
- Google Analytics;
- Broadcast advertising;
- Payment gateways;
- Product discount system software;
- Systems for booking goods and services.
Providing the ability to install modern plugins may require a change in the site engine. However, it is a necessary measure if you want to keep your business competitive.
How to know when it‘s time to update your site?
In order not to miss the moment when it becomes necessary to update the site, it is not at all necessary to analyze it manually. It is enough to install Google analytics on the site, and you will be able to find out in time that the time has come to update a particular component. After installing the code, wait a few days for Googlebot to collect statistics on your site. Then go to your Google account and check the following parameters:
The higher this indicator, the more often site visitors go to other resources or simply close the browser tab.
If the pages on your site aren‘t loading fast enough, visitors won‘t wait and will start looking elsewhere for the information they need. Know that your site visitors don‘t have the patience or time to wait for your site page to finally load. Given that there are many alternatives to your site on the Internet, visitors will leave your site forever. Measuring download speed is easy. There are many relevant specialized services on the Internet.
The amount of time each individual visitor spends on your site shows the level of development of the interface and the quality of the content. Usually this parameter is considered together with the bounce rate.
Website visitors are your potential customers, buyers, subscribers. The conversion allows you to understand which part of the visitors completed the target action - how many people used the service, bought a product or subscribed to the newsletter, depending on the nature of the site. Low conversions indicate that people are not finding what they need on your site. The reason can be anything - outdated content or a poor-quality navigation system. In all cases, you should consider updating your site.
To update or not to update?
Let us list the unambiguous criteria under which the decision to update the site must be made unconditionally:
You must update the site at least once every five years. Perhaps even five years is too long. Interface, technology, content - all these components must meet modern requirements even if you do not have many competitors.
Mobile is a slightly outdated term. More professional is the use of the phrase “responsive design”.
All high-quality websites have long been transferred to the secure HTTPS protocol. This is especially important if the site processes visitor data.
This is the name of a hyperlink that leads to a non-existent page or resource. The presence of such links has a very bad effect on the position of the site in the search results, and also reduces the trust of visitors to your resource.
Modern content management systems allow you to change website content quickly and easily. If this process causes difficulties - immediately start updating the site.
If your competitors‘ resources look better than your old-fashioned site, then many of your customers will go to your competitors, because they will rightly decide that you do not really care about your customers and buyers. If your site looks neat and modern - this will be the best guarantee for consumers of your highest professionalism.
Summing up
As you can see, the benefits of timely updating the content, layout, software, search metadata of your site are more than obvious. Regularly updated quality content will keep your site at the top of the search engine rankings. A neat appearance and modern design will give your customers a good guarantee that your business is up to date. The use of advanced technologies will protect your site from the actions of intruders, and will ensure the trust in the site from customers and from search robots.
So, how often should you update your site? Experts say that it is necessary to update the site at least once every three years. Otherwise, your site faces the danger of quick falling into oblivion. Keeping your site up-to-date provides a lot of benefits, helps to attract new customers and buyers, and, most importantly, to increase the profits of your business.
If the arguments presented in this article seemed convincing to you, but you do not have full-time specialists to update the site, the specialists of our web studio will be happy to bring your site to a modern look. We are always happy to offer you our help or advice. Contact us in any convenient way!
