Customizing your website, designing it to your own liking and choosing the right digital tools for work is the necessary first step for establishing your online presence. Still, your work doesn’t end here, in fact, it only just begins. You see, while it is true that a website promotes you 24/7, while no employee can keep up with this kind of dedicated work, in order to give their best, these websites need to be maintained and regularly updated. This last part is particularly important, seeing as how even some of the most cutting-edge digital tools and resources might start malfunctioning if they get outdated. With this in mind and without further ado, here are top 6 reasons why you should update your website regularly.
1. Staying up to date visually
In the last several years, minimalism is all the rage, while in the last couple of months, brutalism is starting to live a life of its own. Needless to say, visual trends in web design evolve with the incredible speed. Perhaps the best tool of comparison can be found in comparing the visuals of Windows OSs over the course of the years. The 90s had their looks, the early 2000s evolved in their own direction, while, since Windows 8, Microsoft tends to assume a bit more touch-friendly layout. Although differences that the design of your website might face month to month may not be so drastic, you still might want to do a bit of tweaking every now and then.
2. Responsiveness
According to one survey, it takes about 4 seconds for 25 percent of your visitors to abandon your website if it’s not responding. Unfortunately, the responsiveness is not something you can just build. New versions of plugins that you use may not be as compatible with their older versions, while some of them might get completely outdated. Furthermore, you might encounter a new plugin, with the upgraded functionality of an old one, that uses merely a fraction of its resources. To make the long story short, regular updates can do wonders for your website’s loading time and responsiveness.
3. Call to action trends
Every day, new surveys discover tricks that could significantly boost the effectiveness of your call-to-action (CTA) button. For instance, a red CTA button is now known to yield a 21 percent greater click-through-rate (CTR) than its green counterpart. Of course, several years ago, this piece of information was completely obscure. This is why you should constantly be on the lookout for such ground-breaking trends that could propel your website far above its competition.
4. SEO updates
Everyone in the world of digital marketing knows just how quickly the landscape here changes. Professionals from GWM claim that Google is constantly working on their machine learning technology, which means that soon, the pace at which these tweaks to the algorithm happen might become even more frequent. In other words, an SEO trick that currently works might give you adverse results in just a couple of months or even weeks.
5. Watching out for your bounce rate
While your website might currently be at its peak, at one point, your bounce rate might start rapidly increasing, which will further result in the drop of Google rank by your website. Of course, every industry has its own accepted bounce rate. For simple landing pages with a single CTA this may go as high as 90 percent, while for service sites or FAQ sites, it may be as low as 10 percent. The key thing is that you know what you own acceptable bounce rate is and to stay on the lookout for any massive change. Once it occurs, you might need to give your website a facelift.
6. It is much easier
Finally, if there is one thing that everyone should get by now it is that the more frequent you are with these updates, the less work they require. For instance, setting aside an hour every week is much easier than trying to achieve a massive update once every couple of months. Moreover, you could always look for an automatic updater online but this doesn’t mean that this digital tool can do all the heavy lifting for you, without any supervision. In other words, by regularly updating, you are doing yourself a huge favor.
In conclusion
Imagine if you were to run a traditional business without regularly doing an inventory, budgeting or even evaluating your employees. How long would you expect to stay afloat with such misconduct in management? This analogy can easily be applied to this aspect of running a business, as well. All you need to do is give your website as much attention as it deserves and it is bound to keep giving back in days, months and years to come. Sure, it takes a lot of work but the end result is always more than worth it. Needless to say, in the business world, this kind of ROI is all that matters.