How To Know If Your Website Is Outdated

It only feels like yesterday that your swanky new website took the internet by storm, pulling in traffic and boosting revenue for your business. But now you’ve noticed a significant downturn in your business’s online performance. Traffic has decreased, conversions are down, and generating new leads has become almost impossible. Why could this be? Whilst there are many reasons for low online performance, one of the most common factors we deal with here at Chameleon is websites that are outdated.

This means that a given website has failed to keep pace with emerging trends and SEO best practices that help keep websites at the top of Google search results – and their competitors have stolen a march. Read on to find out how to assess if your website is outdated and how SEO could help you revamp your site and boost its online presence.

The Role of SEO in Updating Websites

The biggest factor for why websites often stagnate and fall out of favour with Google is because they are no longer search engine optimised. SEO is the process of improving traffic to your website by optimising your website and its pages for search engines, helping them to rank on their results pages.

It is crucial to keep on top of SEO as this ensures that your website and its content is regularly refreshed and, most importantly, in line with the latest market trends and updates.

Diagnosing Whether Your Website is Outdated: Look at the Design

There are multiple aspects to consider when assessing if your website is outdated and in need of SEO. One of the most critical aspects is the design of your website.

Does your website’s layout look clunky or is it difficult to navigate? Is your website aesthetically-pleasing, with modern fonts, colour schemes and up-to-date imagery? Is it dynamic enough, with a range of multi-media features and elements that make your website visually appealing and user-friendly?

Making your website clear, dynamic and user-friendly is a crucial first step to ensuring your customers find it easy to navigate your site, ensuring that they receive the information they’re looking for, helping you convert more clicks into conversions.

On-Page SEO

An outdated website may face several challenges regarding its on-page content. Firstly, if it hasn’t been updated with relevant keywords reflecting current search trends, it could struggle to rank prominently in search engine results pages (SERP’s).

Similarly, if the site lacks optimised H-tags, meta descriptions, and ALT text for images, it might fail to communicate its relevance to search engine crawlers.

Additionally, if internal linking structures are outdated or non-existent, it could hinder the flow of authority and damage your websites trust score, impacting its overall visibility. Neglecting on-page SEO could therefore result in diminished search engine rankings and reduced organic traffic, leading to a stagnant website.

Technical SEO

There’s also the technical side to your website. Are your links working effectively? Is your site speed slow? Are each of your website’s pages optimised for mobile use? If your website’s architecture is convoluted or lacks proper organisation, Google’s crawlers may struggle to index its content effectively, leading to decreased visibility in search results.

Not having your website optimised for mobile use also isolates a significant portion of your site’s users. You’ll end up with a lack of new leads and lower conversion rates. Neglecting what’s going on behind-the-scenes of your website could be a contributing factor for not ranking well on Google SERPs.

Knowing When to Optimise a Website

Digital marketing is a dynamic, time-sensitive sector. It’s a landscape constantly in flux, forming and reforming in accordance with the latest trends and updates. It’s therefore vital for website-owners to keep abreast of the latest changes, such as those occurring following Google Updates, to ensure your website stays ahead of the curve.

A significant drop in organic traffic, lower search engine rankings, or conversion rates are all clear indications that your website may need urgent attention. As this highlights your website is struggling to keep up with the competition.

Knowing How to Optimise If Your Website is Outdated

There’s no point focusing your efforts on optimising just a few pages or sections of your website; a holistic website is key for marketing your brand consistently and delivering a smooth and seamless user-journey for your customer-base.

A good marketing strategy includes examining every aspect of your site, from its design to its technical SEO and on-page SEO elements, and renovating them all in tandem. This will help ensure your website stays holistic and offers a consistent and enjoyable user-experience.

The Dangers of a Bit-Part Approach to Website Revamping

A piece-meal approach to renovating your website will likely lead to you missing out huge chunks of your website, skipping over elements you hadn’t even considered that are badly in need of a refresh. This can lead to a whole host of problems surrounding the infrastructure and consistency of your website.

For example, you could accidentally delete or alter existing links in your website, making it a nightmare for both Google and your customers to navigate. Remember, if Google’s crawlers struggle to understand your website, your customers will to! Ultimately, this will mean your website will struggle to rank on Google SERPs, diminishing your organic traffic.

Optimising Your Website: Holistic SEO

Updating your website therefore requires a holistic, 360 approach to SEO. You will need to look into every aspect of your website to investigate why it is no longer performing to its maximum. And then form a marketing strategy around these insights.

This can involve a variety of steps. Re-designing your website, ensuring it is visually-appealing and easy to navigate. On-Page SEO, ensuring your content is fresh, relevant, and optimised for search engines. And Technical SEO, which ensures the architecture of your site is holistic and well-linked, so Google’s crawlers can more easily understand your site.

How Chameleon Can Help If Your Website is Outdated

If this all sounds too much, or you don’t want to fork-out for internal SEO costs, Chameleon can help! We are experts at taking outdated websites desperately in need of a revamp and giving them the breath of fresh air they need to make it big online. We’ll provide you with a timely, cost-effective alternative to self-maintenance.

Pursuing a website revamp with our web maintenance services might be the best choice you ever made for your business. We can help bolster your business’ online presence, giving your website all the vital components it needs to become fully search engine optimised.

Meanwhile, our web design services can help give your website the fresh lick of paint they need to stand out online. To give your brand the visually stunning and eye-catching website your business deserves.

Are you starting to worry your website is outdated? Don’t worry, we’re experts at Chameleon for all things related to websites. Ready to take the internet by storm once more? Get in touch today.