The start of a new year brings ideas of refreshing, revitalizing, and renewing the old. We all have our own personal goals, but what about your company's goals? The online world is ever-changing and can be hard to keep up with everything that's happening. How do you know what to change and when? We compiled a list of things to look at when thinking about refreshing your online home...your company website.

...it doesn't look great on a mobile device

Mobile-first, or a responsive design, is becoming the standard in website development. Not only does it help your users to see your information clearly, but it also benefits your search results. Google rewards those sites that have a stellar mobile-friendly website by showing them ahead of those that do not. What does a responsive website mean? It means the site will resize according to your screen size. You can test this out on your desktop simply by changing the size of your browser window. If the elements change and adjust, congrats! You have a mobile-friendly site!

...you can't update your information easily

Advancements have been made in the world of content management systems (CMS). If you have a fairly old website, you might not have a CMS...which can be a bother when you need to adjust the information on the website. Newer websites allow you to sign into a dashboard and access your information. By having full access, you're able to keep all the information on your website updated as soon as it needs to be - without having to wait for a developer to change it for you. This is super beneficial for your search results as well because users will know the website is kept up-to-date and visit more often.

...everything is an image - even your text

The way you had to design a website way back when was with images. This made them look really cool, but hard to update. Now, we have things like Google Fonts and Typekit that work with CSS. What that means is that now you can add a ton of really cool fonts to your website and they can remain text - not an image. The benefit to having your text be, well, text, is for accessibility reasons. Screen readers can read the text so much easier than they can an Alt Tag on an image. Also, this goes back to being able to easily update your website.

...your content sounds awkward or isn't up-to-date

How content was placed on websites just a few years ago is vastly different than the way things are today. Previously, you had to pack in so many keywords on each page to make sure you could rank highly on search engines. This made the content flow awkwardly and didn't sound like a real person. How we think about search engine optimization (SEO) now is not so much about keywords and meta tags, but the quality of the content. Is it engaging? Does it sound natural? Does it match your company's "voice?" All of these things will help your organic rank. If people are staying on your website to read your engaging content, you've boosted your rating with Google.

...the style just looks old

If your company marketing has been updated but not your website design, you might want to think about a new website. Keeping everything consistent is key. If your business cards and brochures and other marketing materials have a certain style and the website doesn't have the same style, it might be confusing to potential buyers. If you have an older website and have updated certain elements to match your company's brand, you still might want to think about a new website design. Putting duct tape and band-aids on an older website can work for awhile, but only for awhile. By updating the design, all your new elements can work together to create a beautiful, seamless design that will match your brand/company style and therefore enhance user experience and be a mobile-friendly website that's easy to update.

If you're needing a new website, or not sure if you do need a new website, we are happy to help! The BuilderIQ team can perform a free Opportunity Review on your current website and online presence. This review will open up opportunity areas and find areas that are doing really well! Contact us today and make sure your online model home is as good as the real deal.