Your Website Needs a Makeover

Welcome to a brand new episode of Raney Day Talks Podcast. I’m your host, Jennifer Sakowski.

How are you all doing? By the time this episode airs, we’re going to be just a few days into November. Whew. You all, that is so exciting. I want to launch this theme of no excuse November.

So if you’re one that has been following along to each episode and have heard my previous talks on setting your goals, nailing your goals, we have 90 days left, so on and so forth, if you have been following along, now is the time.

If you haven’t pulled out your 2020 goals and looked over what you had set out to accomplish, do it now. 60 days left, you all. Less than 60 days. And I want to make sure that you look back and even in the midst of all the crazy that has happened this year, because I’m pretty sure that we’re going to look back and it’s going to be a meme of a four-letter word of 2020, I want you to come out thriving.

And the only way I know how to do that is to continually pressed to you on why it’s important to just take the time and look at your goals, make a to-do list, set out an action plan, and get after it. Now, that’s not the episode that I want to talk about today, but I do want to push out this no excuse November. And that is my mantra for this month.

And in doing so, looking at the business, the whole entity. So if we start with your website, I know, it just got a little uncomfortable, because that’s what we do, we do website design, and I think it’s important that as a business leader you take the time to pull up your website and look at it. Because the thought of, “Well, I have one, so that’s good,” that’s not good enough for me. That concept, that mindset is not good enough, because there’s three main points I want to talk to you about today of why your website needs a make-over.

And the first item that I want to talk to you about on why your website needs a make over is, of course, the design. Now, when you pull it up, it may look okay for you when you launched it three years ago.

All right. But I promise you it’s time to give it some love. Now, design itself, it needs to be updated every few years, and I even think every year we need to pay attention, because just the overall look and feel of a site needs to match your audience. And when you pull up, and the next point is going to be technology, but the ways that we can package and deliver your message, it evolves just like the technology evolves.

So we need to make sure that you’re putting your best face forward. And what oftentimes happens is that maybe your brand has evolved, maybe your message has evolved, maybe your colors have evolved, maybe you started using a different logo that you pulled off of Canva, whatever, it’s time to make sure that your brand and your design is consistent to the message and what you’re using offline.

So if you haven’t lately freshened up your design, it’s time to do so. And while you’re doing that, it’s important to look at the technology that is making up your site, because the technology, just your phone and the system that it operates from, has to be updated.

Every once in a while, you’ll see Apple says, “It’s time for an update,” or like me, “it can’t be updated because your storage is full.” It’s the same thing with your software, especially with WordPress. WordPress, there’s WordPress, and then the themes that make it so, and then there’s the plug-ins that add all those neat features and functionality to a website.

They all have to be updated. And what oftentimes happens is that a plug-in was created and maybe the developers abandoned it, maybe they haven’t kept up on it, whatever may happen. So if it’s not being regularly updated and monitored, when the rest of your site software gets updated and that doesn’t get updated, or we try to update it, it could crash your site.

Basically, things aren’t playing nice in the sandbox and it brings it all down. Well, that’s a problem, right? That’s a big problem, because we need your site up no matter what. And that’s something that we can control. So as we look at the design, we also have to look underneath the hood and see what’s going on.

And we want to make sure that the plug-ins that are being used, they are updated, their developers haven’t abandoned them, that they’re not showing a ton of vulnerabilities. So that’s one. Another is that with security right now, with, what, they’ve said, 50% more users are online right now. That goes along with the amount of security issues that we’re facing.

Tons of vulnerabilities. We’re getting hacked and malware, it’s been insane the last few months of what we’ve been battling for our sites. So it’s important that you keep your software updated, because the developers, they launch new ways to put firewalls or to develop patches for those security breaches. And so that’s why it’s important, because you don’t want anybody to come back underneath of your site and get in and cause havoc, right? It’s time to update.

Another point with technology, not only with your server needs to be managed, but there’s PHP, which involves there’s security that has to do with site speed. Site speed is huge when it comes to how your site ranks, and so if you’re not managing what’s underneath the hood, it’s affecting how it shows up online.

And a big part that keeps coming to mind with technology is we find better ways to do things. We find better plug-ins and better tools, better builders that aren’t filled with a bunch of bloat that causes your site to load slow. We in this industry and trying to be a leader in this industry in the marketing realm and with web, we have to stay up on what’s the latest and greatest.

What’s going to add the most value and impact to our customers? And so we make sure that we do regular audits. Are the builders that what we’re using right now, is it the best that we can be providing? Is our development processes the best that we should be doing right now that goes along with what Google requires?

We’re constantly evolving and trying to stay up with technology and it’s important to you as the consumer of those services and a business leader that has your website out there to stay informed. So not only your site design needs to be updated and modified, your technology needs to be updated. And the last is your audience. Let’s face it, you’ve evolved in the last year.

Shoot, I think we’ve evolved in the last 30 days, and it’s time to go back to our site and it’s time to update the content that’s on our site, because our messaging may have evolved, so therefore that we have to evolve that for our site. And for our audience, we might’ve started out serving them up an A product, but now we’re in version three of that A product and we need to make sure that, that information surrounding that product is on our site so that way our audience knows what the heck that we’re doing.

Also, our audience, they’ve gotten smarter with their search queries so it’s important that the content you’re serving up to them that they’re actually able to find your website. I cannot stress it enough how important it is to go to your website and look at it through the eyes of your customer.

Because oftentimes as business leaders, we’re so in it that when we talk to our customers, we may talk over their head. We’re not meeting them where they’re at. That’s why, if you go back to previous episodes, we talk about knowing your target audience.

It is so important to know how they’re coming to your site and the questions that they’re asking, because if you’re not answering those, then you’re missing the point. You’re missing the opportunity. So this is concept of my website is just a set it and forget it thing within my business, no, it is a living and breathing function. I can’t think of the words that I want to use, but function of your website.

It is important that you keep it updated. That’s what is drawing people to your business online. It is your best face, and it is home base for all of your digital marketing efforts.

So once again, if you haven’t already, this episode is just to reiterate why if you haven’t looked at your website recently it’s time to do so. And I want you to do it now while we have a couple months left of this year so that way you can get with us, you can get with your web people, you can just make some changes that will continue to launch you to success for 2021.

I hope that you find this helpful and if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to send us a message. Or I would love to see you pop up in our Facebook group on Raney Day Talks Biz. So once again, I’m Jennifer Sakowski. Take a look at your website. Is it time for a make-over?