An outdated web design can cripple your business

A website is your business resume that communicates with customers. Your business growth depends on this communication. A more relevant and easier customer communication makes the business solution more popular. Since 98% of consumers visit business websites before making a purchasing decision, an updated web design becomes a necessity. 

Remember, customers depend on trends but trends are fluid. So adjusting and shifting according to trends is inevitable for businesses. Your website being the face of your business must be updated at least yearly. Otherwise, the cons of an outdated web design could be severe. 

Below is the list of these severe consequences: 

1. Bad First Impression and Terrible User Experience

“First impression lasts”

A Forbes study validates this quote, “88% of online users never return to a website after a bad experience”. You can have a clear idea of how crucial it is to maintain a good first impression on users.

Otherwise, users will perceive your business as unprofessional. Let’s understand it with a real-world scenario. Consider a user who wants to hire a plumbing company to fix and align the piping in his home. What will he do? 

First, he would search for the solution (plumbing company) online. He finds 4 companies in the nearby area. Now, he visits their website. Since all the companies are nearby, pricing and perks can also be similar. But he can only hire one. Which company would he choose? The one whose website could convince him.

All other companies lost the battle of acquiring that customer. They couldn’t imprint the impression of their professionalism and relevancy. This is the power of first impression which is necessary to generate a great user experience.

A HubSpot study reveals that 38.5% of users leave the website due to outdated web design. Therefore, businesses that want to thrive in the future must take care of their website design. Otherwise, businesses with outdated web design will generate terrible user experiences that could annihilate your business’s reputation. 

So what generates a great website user experience;

• Seamless Navigation

You want users to take action(buy a product or book a service). There must be a proper route that should guide users where to go and what to do. This is the core principle of seamless navigation otherwise users get lost.

• Emotional Connection via Interactive Content 

An awesome user experience cannot be achieved without inducing emotions into users. You can use content (images, videos, sliders, website copy, etc) to establish an emotional connection. This emotional connection makes them your loyal customers who care about your business which means you have delivered an amazing user experience. 

• Responsive Web Design 

A responsive web design generates a great user experience because;

• 99.3% of users can access the website on any device(mobile: 66.88%, desktop: 31.42%, tablet: 1%, etc) and it looks perfect on all devices. 
• Users do not encounter broken design layouts for any device. 
• Users enjoy high-quality content (images, videos, sliders, website copy, etc). 

The below stats authenticate it all:

2. Fewer Leads

Leads or sales are the lifeline of any business. It is one of the most important growth trackers for businesses. That is why businesses want to avoid all the hurdles in lead generation. You also need to keep a steady flow of incoming leads, right? That is why an outdated website design is something so bad that your business cannot afford to have it even for a single second. 

An outdated web design dries the revenue stream and limits your business growth. How?

• First, an outdated web design fails to deliver a great user experience which restricts the user from identifying your business as a potential professional option. Thus, fewer leads and limited growth. 
• Second, the quality of your web design showcases the quality of your services. An outdated web design means you do not care about the quality of your business. Although these assumptions may not be true, still they badly impact the incoming leads.

• Third, since your website is outdated which implies it has a poor seo score. Due to this reason, Google will not rank the website on search pages, taking away your business visibility. A less visible business will get fewer leads.   

An updated web design saves your business from all the above-mentioned troubles. It enhances your seo score, showcases you care about quality, delivers an amazing user experience, and gives you organic leads. Otherwise, Google drops the website rankings, taking away your business exposure to potential customers.

Also read: How to maximize conversion with Website Design

3. Out of Competition

Competition is inevitable among businesses. A successful business always has a competitive edge. It helps your business capture most of the customers. Otherwise, it is even harder to survive, let alone thrive. 

Customers trust businesses to solve their problems. Trust is an essential commodity for any successful business and a website is a trust-building channel. So, a bad or outdated web design can cause trust issues. How? 

Your website is your online appearance and people judge through appearances. Your business may be providing top-notch services but if your competitor’s website is awesome and yours is not, people will count your business as nonprofessional. 

4. Poor Website Health

An outdated web design means you do not take care of your website. What happens when you do not take care of something? Its health deteriorates. 

Your website might have outdated plugins which also limit website functionalities. There could be crawl errors, impacting the website performance. 

There could be severe security vulnerabilities in your outdated website that any hacker can exploit, hurting your business reputation. That is why it is necessary to keep an updated website.

You can check these errors and receive the latest insights about your website using Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.

Final Takeaway

Most businesses think websites are for only global companies. This notion is wrong. 87% of potential customers who evaluate your business products or solutions online say otherwise. 

The world is a global megacity. Websites are the homes businesses live in. Your website design is the first thing the user interacts with. If it is outdated, users might think either you are closed for business or you lack professionalism. That is why, you must hire a professional web design company like Logico to embed an amazing user experience through modern web designs. 

If you do not own a website please also read this article: Why are you not claiming 28% of your business revenue?