Wow, there are a lot of awful websites out there. Really. Sites that look old fashioned, out of date, and don’t work properly on a phone. Sites where all the information is crammed above the fold with no long scroll and a tricky navigation.
The kind of sites that potential customers land on, and think ‘this company looks a bit dated’ as their first impression.
The problem is that this is probably unfair. Most websites are under six or seven years old and if you run a company and have invested in a website that has dated quickly due to new technology (especially phones, which I’ll come to) then can feel pretty frustrating if you’ve paid thousands for a website only a few years ago and it feels like you need a new one already.
The question you need to ask yourself though, is – can you afford NOT to build a new website?
I know, it sucks to have to rebuild a site, but your shop window is your shop window. If the glass got broken, you’d get it fixed and it’s the same with your web presence. It is the first impression that most people get of who you are and what you do, so it’s got to be good! More importantly, it needs to be better than your competition. How often have you googled a service or product and then gone for the one with the easy-to-use website (or more crucially, you’ve left the one with the rubbish website in frustration after a few seconds)? If you’ve done it, then your customers have probably done it too.
- If your site is not fully responsive then you will get penalised by Google (since December 2016) and your site is less likely to show up on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS).
- If your site is not fully responsive on mobile, then your potential customers are highly likely to leave it before they’ve read beyond the homepage.
- If you are trying to run e-commerce on a non-responsive site then you are going to be losing a big proportion of the 50% of UK people who, when shopping online, used their mobile phones in 2016.
- If you sell anything and aren’t offering an e-commerce solution then you may be losing out on a lot of potential business. Last year in the UK, over 20% of total retail sales were done online with half of that being on mobile. This could be a big chunk of your revenue.
- If you are using Facebook to run your business then you are potentially missing out on business. Facebook is a great start up environment but if you want long term, sustainable growth, then you need a website. People expect businesses that they have heard of to show up on Google and you need to be there if you want to grow in the long term, especially as the average Facebook user is getting older. Facebook is great, but you need both for long term business success.
UA Media can help. We understand that if you are running a small or medium-sized business then you need to make sure that anything that you spend on marketing has a decent return. We’re the same – as we are a small business too.
We can build you a new website quickly and simply. You’ll have control over it yourself, we’ll train you how to use it, and if you don’t have time, we can update it for you whenever you need help. Our ongoing support and training, marketing strategy and social media management is something that many of our clients find cost effective and useful.
Our prices are very reasonable and we can help you plan and execute a new website that will have a great site map, good copy, quality imagery and that will be easy to use on a phone. It will be properly optimized so that people can find it on Google and we’ll train you how to use it. For a few thousand pounds, you can create a shop window that makes people stay, and that converts users into new customers and creates leads for your business.
Give us a ring or come and see us, and we can help you to get a new website and make your marketing that bit more marvellous in 2017. Our little team has decades of marketing experience between us and we love helping clients to think through their marketing strategy. The kettle’s always on!
