Set it and Forget it! It’s an excellent idea for a Ronco Rotisserie Oven but a bad idea for a website. Websites are living, breathing entities (metaphorically speaking). Websites have the potential to be 10X better than your best salesperson. But it must constantly evolve, change, and adapt to meet your consumer’s needs. You wouldn’t go years without updating your smartphone. So don’t treat your website like the prop for a 30-minute infomercial.
Your website is your digital storefront and your potential customer’s first impression of your company. What statement does your website make? Is it dated, lacking helpful information, or hard to navigate? Or does it have professional images full of useful information and an intuitive user experience to convert visitors into prospects easily?
With technology evolving and consumer behaviors changing, a potential buyer might only see your online presence and not walk into your sales office. It’s more important than ever to keep your website up-to-date and upgraded.
Recently, the Power Marketing team underwent a complete website redesign. It got us thinking. What signs must you look for to decide if it’s time for a new website?
Here are seven (7) signs that you need a new home builder website:
Your website loads slowly – When it comes to websites, speed is the name of the game, and it can dramatically affect your bottom line. 47% of consumers expect websites to load in two seconds or less, and 40% will abandon a page that takes three or more seconds. You can call it the Amazon effect, but people visiting your website expect it to run fast and load quickly. If it doesn’t, you’ll lose them. This is why we use one of the top hosting providers in the market for 2022, according to Digital.
It’s not delivering leads – One of the reasons Power Marketing underwent a redesign was to attract and get better quality leads. Your website should be your best salesperson. You are ahead of the game if you have a website designed to answer pain points, solve problems, and convert prospects to leads. Warm leads are typically much further in the buying process when contacting sales through your website. Warm leads reduce close time and filter out some “tire kickers.”
The website is not responsive – Statista says mobile search traffic accounts for 55% of all web traffic. If your website isn’t built specifically for mobile or mobile responsive, you’re losing over half of your audience, not to mention that Google now uses mobile-first indexing. Mobile-first indexing means Google predominantly uses the mobile version of the content for indexing and ranking. A website that’s not mobile responsive is a dinosaur in today’s digital age, hurting you more than helping you. It’s time to get that updated ASAP!
No SEO – A website without SEO is like a building without roads. If you don’t have SEO correctly set up on your website, people won’t find you or know how to get there. A beautiful building in the middle of the woods does no good if nobody can find it. SEO is a strategy to rank keywords organically on Google. Some ranking factors are behind the scenes (e.g., Onsite SEO), and others are more obvious (e.g., blogging, content development). SEO best practices help Google learn what your page is about and rank it accordingly. SEO is complicated. It’s easy to learn the elements but challenging to master. Check out a recent blog covering some of the basics.
Updating the website is hard – You should be able to edit your website without any issues. Today’s easy-to-use content management systems (CMS) like WordPress are user-friendly and have several automated features. However, if you can’t update the website yourself without crashing all or parts of your website, this is a red flag. Or, if making small changes takes time and effort, it’s a clear sign you should make significant changes.
All Your Competitors Have – If you look around and all your competitors have flashy new websites, it puts you at a disadvantage and appears as if you don’t care. Those competitors will start stealing your business by offering better and more up-to-date information.
Difficulty Integrating – Today’s websites need to be adaptable. There’s constantly a new stream of plugins, apps, and integrations to upgrade your website’s functionality. This functionality could offer your clients a way to pay invoices online or a CRM system to manage/track all your sales leads. If you have difficulty integrating with simple software, it is a sign it’s time for a change.
Power Marketing’s Website Evolution
In honor of our blog topic, below is the 20-year evolution of the Power Marketing website:
Power Marketing’s website in 2001
Power Marketing’s website in 2011
How We Can Help
If your website is not getting the desired results or the type of leads you need, it’s time to consider making a change.
We decided a new website would help expand our service offerings to match the shift in the market, showcase our previous work, better focus on our core strengths, and attract more of the kind of business we wanted.
We’d love to talk with you if you’ve been thinking it’s time. We’ve been helping home builders improve their online presence and use their website as a lead generator for three decades. Our team understands the home builder and the homebuyer. We build websites that attract and convert. Talk to one of our experts today.