We’ve all worked with people who didn’t seem to do pull their weight in the office compared to their co-workers; here are seven indications that your website may be falling down on the job, and a new website is a must-have.

A new website might be just what the sales and marketing doctor ordered.

Whether you are in a B2B (business to business) or sell directly to consumers, chances are that – for most of your customers – the beginning of the buying cycle now starts with an online search for a business or products like yours. It’s never been more important for your website design and functionality to be aligned with measurable marketing and general business goals.

Your website’s job is to attract, engage and motivate members of your target audiences. If you’re seeing one or more of these signs pointing to website-obsolescence, it might mean you need a new website that can support your marketing plan and corporate goals.

7 Signs You Need a New Website

1. Inadequate (or Falling) Web Traffic

In many ways, sales is a numbers game. You typically need to attract a certain number of qualified leads in order to expect a certain number of new customers or conversions. If your web traffic is inadequate, you will not be able to fill the pipeline with the number of leads that you need in order to produce the number of new customers or sales you desire. You might need a new website if your old site and/or it’s hosting solution can’t handle number of web visits you need. Likewise, if traffic is falling off, it could be a sign that your site’s design isn’t attractive anymore or that site visitors can’t find what they need.

You can positively impact web traffic by optimizing pages according to search engine best practices, continually adding unique content that would be of interest and value to members of your target markets, and using email marketing, social networks and content curation sites to share your content with others. Whether your site is old or new, you can add search-optimized content; however, an old site may not support the architecture and code that search engines give preference to. If your site isn’t attracting online search visitors, it’s a sure sign you need to take a new approach.

2. Poor Quality Web Traffic

All web traffic is not created equal. If your site is not optimized properly or your site’s content is not aligned with your target market’s interests, you could end up in a situation where you have good web traffic, but poor quality traffic (traffic from individuals that aren’t members of one of your target audiences).

Ideally, you will have a significant amount of website content that is geared to members of your target markets in general, and specifically includes content with topics and keywords they would typically use when searching for a business or products like yours.

3. High Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is determined by the number of single-page site visits. While a high (or rising) bounce rate could be an indication that your site is attracting low quality traffic, it could also mean that even though you are attracting members of your target markets, what you have to say once they land on your website is not engaging or intriguing enough for them to want to find out more about your business.

Your bounce rate could also be negatively impacted if site visitors simply don’t know what to do next once they have landed on your website due to poor navigational options or lack of a call to action. Be sure that all of your site’s landing pages include a call to action, subscription, information request or another type of form.

4. Low (or Falling) Average Number of Pages Viewed

Ideally your website will have an intuitive, easy-to-navigate site structure, compelling calls to take the next step or find out more, and be interesting enough to take site visitors on the journey you want them to take on your website in order to nurture leads or strengthen customer relationships.

5. Low (or Falling) Average Time on Site

Engagement is the key to keeping site visitors on your site longer. Adding live chat capabilities that are responsive to certain actions, surveys, polls, video, and relevant content can all be used to keep site visitors on site and learning more about your business and its products or services.

6. Lack of Conversions

Ultimately, all the quality web traffic and time on site is for nothing if traffic does not convert. Lack of conversions (site visitors that take the next action you want them to take, be that filling out a contact form, subscribing, sharing your content on social networks, visiting your business, booking an appointment or buying something) could indicate that the content of your site is not persuasive, is inadequate or could even indicate a need to review other aspects of your marketing (price, positioning, product, etc.)

7. Waning Customer Interest

Your website can do more than just attract new customers or fill the lead pipeline. It can also be used to engage your customers in order to boost sales to existing clients and your retention rate. Many business websites focus heavily on customer attraction but fail to deliver when it comes to keeping the interest of current customers.

Remembering that attracting new customers can be 5-10x more expensive than retaining clients, and that current clients are far more likely to make purchases and to spend more per visit than new customers, revamping your website to help you engage and retain customers should be a top priority!

*You’ll find most of these measures available at no cost using Google analytics; don’t forget to use current numbers to establish benchmarks before your web revamp in order to measure progress. 

You might also like: 5 Things Your Marketing Must Do, No Matter What Business You’re In

Resources:

• Google best practices for web site optimization (SEO): Google search engine optimization starter guide PDF
• Bing webmaster guidelines: Bing search engine optimization guidelines
• 2021 On-Page Search Ranking Factors (moz.com): Optimizing a website for local search