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Your website is often your organisation’s first point of contact. If you want to be seen as a credible group of professionals then your site must at least work. On top of that there are design pitfalls that will send potential customers and clients running. Some websites out there are doing their owners more harm than good. If your site is guilty of any these sins then the time has well and truly come for an upgrade.

Cardinal Website Sins

Broken links

Links that used to go somewhere but don’t anymore. They return a 404 error, or even worse no error at all. We’ve seen lists of links where there are more dotpoints than actual links – a sure sign that your site was thrown together quickly from a template.

Music playing on the front page

Bonus points for low quality midi music. Forgivable if you’re a band. But otherwise music is an annoying intrusion for most users.

Flash animations

Steve Jobs ensured that flash will be consigned to the dustbin of history. Did you know that apple devices don’t and won’t support flash animations? If your site relies on flash then it is broken for apple users, simple as that.Apple and Adobe Flash controversy

Adobe kills mobile Flash

Layout changing jarringly from page to page

Ever been to a website where the navigation menu or a sidebar is in a slightly different position from page to page? We have.

Only works on some browsers

Install some different browsers and visit your own site. Does it look the same in each one? While minor differences are usually acceptable, some sites are downright broken on certain browsers. Some developers get around this, by preventing users with certain browsers from entering the site. This is a very bad thing.

Website content partially covered up by other content

If this is happening, your site is a victim of badly code layout. Read about it here

content over filling div elements

Badly contrasted text

Light blue coloured text on a white background? Red text on a black background? About 8% of men are colour-blind and struggle to read sites that commit this sin. If your site is hard to read you are driving away visitors.

Slideshows

Sliders. Wait … really? But those look cool! Yes they do look cool but research proves they’re useless for getting the site visitor to click anything. Check out this article. Once you’re finished ask yourself the last time you clicked on anything on a slider.

Passed Unscathed?

There are many more potential signs your website needs an upgrade. Try Does my website suck for a thorough checklist. We weren’t mean enough to provide examples but they are.

Other reasons to upgrade your website

Okay, so maybe your website looks okay and works fine. There are other possible reasons why it may be a good idea to upgrade your site.

Unable to update yourself

These days new websites are built using content management systems like wordpress and joomla. Once the site is built by a developer, they allow you to add content to your site yourself using no more skills than you’d need to use Microsoft Office. If your site is static then you’re missing out on most of what the web has to offer.

Your competitor’s site is better

Maybe their site just looks better. Or maybe their site has online purchases while yours does not. Whatever the case, if your competitor’s sites are better you’re losing business to them.

You want to add a new feature

Maybe it’s something as simple as a contact form. Or something a little more ambitious like a forum.

You search your industry and you don’t turn up on the first page

If this is the case then you need search engine optimisation done on your site.

We offer upgrade services and describe them in detail here. If you think your site needs an upgrade contact us and we’ll give your site a free appraisal.

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