We’re at the point now where most businesses have websites. But we are also at the point where a lot of those websites are old. If your own website is old, do you need it completely rebuilt? Or can you salvage it with a little work?
IMPORTANT: We will give your old website a free analysis to let you know how your website is performing.
The worst things about older websites are obsolete search engine optimization (SEO), and old design that makes site visitors think your site has been neglected. Other important issues are a lack of contact forms (VERY important) and social media. Here’s what you’ll need to do about these items:
Mobile Device Friendly – You Need It.
Money concerns aside, YOU NEED A MOBILE FRIENDLY WEBSITE! Why? Because as of April, 2015, Google began penalizing websites that didn’t comply with their mobile standards. As a business owner, you do NOT want your search engine ranking penalized. In addition, over half of all internet traffic is now mobile.
Click here to use Google’s Mobile Friendly Test app to see if your website is current;y being penalized.
OLD SEO – Not very expensive
Search engines change their algorithms (what they want to see in a website) frequently, and this really hurts old websites. Is your website’s SEO old? Here’s how to find out.
Look at your page title. If it says “Welcome”, or is only the name of your business, your SEO isn’t obsolete, it is missing. Another dead giveaway is a VERY long title. In 2007, this was really good SEO. But since then, search engines started limiting the number of characters they will read in the title to around 60 characters, including spaces. Sp everything after that 60 characters is now ignored bt search engines.
There are more indications of old SEO, but in any case, an older site’s SEO isn’t too expensive to fix. Your decision will have to be based upon whether it’s worth fixing the SEO on an old website, or whether your budget would be better served with a new one.
OLD DESIGN – Can get expensive if you need it
This is pretty easy to figure out. The same link I used earlier is a good example. Note how narrow the pages are. This is because the site was built back when people used those clunky old CRT monitors. Modern sites use a much more widescreen design, which makes this site look very old. Should this website be replaced by a new version? Yes, it should. Rebuilding an old website can get pricey. Fortunately, we are offering some great deals on rebuilds. Depending upon the size of the website, we can rebuild an old site into a modern content management system for well under $1000.
Here’s the good news: Do all old sites like this need a rebuild? Not necessarily. Here is an older website someone asked us to analyze. I took a long look, and although it would be well served by a rebuild, I decided that it still works pretty well. In this case, the site’s problems aren’t so severe that they are killing the site. While we would love to get paid to rebuild the site (and eventually it will need to be done) we don’t consider it crucial to the success of the client that they buy a rebuild yet.
CONTACT FORMS – Price depends upon several factors
When people come to your site they often have questions about your products and services. They are used to forms now, and the forms give you another advantage; research shows that when a business responds to a contact form, it increases the chances of that potential customer doing business with you.
The price of adding a contact form depends upon the kind of website you have. This is because coding has to be added to the site, and this can be relatively easy, or VERY difficult to do. But whatever kind of website you have, if you don’t have an easily accessible contact form, you need one.
This is been rather long, but there is a LOT more that can go into making the decision to rebuild your old website. Contact us for a free website analysis to find out how your site is doing.
SOCIAL MEDIA – Very inexpensive to fix
Does your business need social media? Probably, but not always. Some businesses should save money on social media, because the nature of certain businesses isn’t served well by having it.
We can develop Facebook pages and other social media relatively cheaply. And adding the links to your existing website is easy. If you need social media added to your old website, this is something you can definitely afford.