When it comes to design, whether it be the interior design of an office, home or the graphic design of a website, the appeal only lasts so long. You can tell precisely the timeframe of a room’s design by the colors and fabrics used, and the same is true with your website. Any website design that is two years or older needs an update!

Even if you love your website, visitors may not find it as appealing. How do you know? Have a look at this list. If your site is past its prime, it may be time for an update or to a fresh look altogether.

1. Mobile-Friendly

If your website was built in the early 2000’s, it’s likely that your site is not mobile-friendly. Even if you’ve applied a plug-in to address the issue, your site’s mobile experience may be text only. It’s imperative to ditch your old template and find a responsive design that delivers optimal viewing and an interactive user experience, regardless of the device being used to access your site. Research shows that 48% of business searches were conducted on a mobile device. This concludes that almost half of your potential clients are not even seeing you online. Source: Google Research

2. Content for Them, Not You

Take a look at your site’s content. What’s front and center? Your education, experience, firm history, and accolades or your clients’ needs and your process, services and value props in helping to address those needs?  Your site is for them, so it should be about them.

3. Something New for Return Visitors

Research tells us that return visitors spend more time and visit more pages than new visitors. If you don’t have anything new for return visitors to see, they will leave dissatisfied. If they visit several times and still see nothing new, why would they even come back? Start a blog and post at least twice a month. If you conduct events or seminars, have an events page and provide details for upcoming events.  You will not only engage more visitors with new content, but you’ll also elevate your site’s search engine optimization.

4. Easy to Search Content

If you aren’t adding new content to your site regularly, you probably don’t need a search box. However, if you have a blog, you need a search box. A search box makes it easier for visitors to find answers to their questions and establishes your site as a valuable resource.

5. Fresh and Appealing Images

There are trends in photography and graphic design. People are more skillful at identifying dated pictures than you would think. If your site is layered with stock photos of people from seven years ago, consider hiring a photographer to capture creative and authentic photos or update your pics to new stock photos created with the latest photographic tools.

6. Loads Quickly

People are impatient, and so is Google. Visitors to your site expect it to load quickly and when it doesn’t, they notice. Google notices too because delays in your site’s load time end up hurting your Google rankings. One of the most common reasons for your site taking longer than usual to load is because of your web hosting service.  If your site is slow, you should call your web hosting company to review the data usage for your website. You may need to pay a little more for better service, but it’s worth it to make a good first impression.

7. An Individual Page for Each Service

Do you list and describe all of your services on one page or do you have a distinct page for each service? Not everyone needs everything.  Each service should have its own page, allowing you to provide more detail. When each service has its own page, you can also become more targeted with your digital marketing efforts by being able to link the specific service page to campaigns you launch through content, email, and social marketing.

8. Social Media Sites Easily Accessible

There are 2.3 billion people active on social media. Any content you post should be easy to share through social media share buttons. If your site doesn’t make it easy for visitors to share your content, it’s time for an upgrade.

When advisor websites become stale and dated, it’s because in-house resources are limited. You don’t have to figure it all out alone. Financial Advocates provides Virtual Marketing support services to financial advisors. Learn more here, or email April Smith at asmith@financialadvocates.com.