Before I go into the 8 things, let's think about what an out-of-date website says about your business.
I was looking for some financial services over the weekend. The businesses were meant to be professional businesses that offer investment services. Most of them require a minimum of $10,000 to open an account with them. Yes, these are businesses that want to look after other people's money.
I looked at 4 such investment services. I gave up after a while because I was being sidetracked by how bad their websites were. They were bad in terms of not being able to find the information I needed, bad in terms of design, and bad in terms of appearing outdated.
I know that we shouldn’t judge by appearances (with people or websites) but we do it anyway. This is especially true when we don’t know a business.
I could think that they are too busy looking after their clients to worry about their website. Or I could think that they are no longer in business, or not profitable since they are not spending any money on their website.
1 ) Copyright date at the footer of your website is years out of date
I know that not everyone notices this. I think this annoys me because most WordPress website themes allow the year to be updated automatically.
What you can do:
Visit your website looking at it from the front end on any device. Scroll down to the very bottom of your website to see a year is there. If it’s not the current year, then it should be changed. If your website does not allow for an automated year update, then put a reminder on your calendar to update it during January. Ideally, the copyright should be the start year of the website to the current year.
2 ) You haven't added content to your blog in the last month or so
I can be as guilty of this as anyone. I try to get a couple of blog posts out a month. I also want to start adding the Facebook lives I do on #WordPressWednesday. As a one-person business, I need to get my information and brand out there to be seen. Blog posts are a way of getting myself out there for free. I’m assuming that you re-purpose and any blog posts you write into social media formats.
Your website must be updated regularly so that Google and other search engines see your website as updated and relevant.
What you can do:
I know that this sounds easier than it is. Set aside time for either yourself or a team member to create content. You can hire people to write the content for you. AI services such as Peppertype and Rytr will create some content for you. For ideas on content, think about questions that clients or prospective clients ask you about your product or services. You can even write about something that annoys you and help others (a bit like this post 🙂 ).
3) Ensure that your website looks good on mobile devices particularly smartphones
I still find websites where I need to use pinch and zoom on the screen to read the screen. As a user, it’s annoying! Years ago the pinch and zoom method was acceptable for mobile devices. Not any more. Website visitors expect to be able to read your website easily.
What you can do:
Visit your website using a mobile device such as a tablet or smartphone. Read through the home page to see how easy (or otherwise) it is. Navigate around your website to see how it looks to a visitor and how easy it is to find information.
4 ) Your website shows a not secure notification in a browser
For some years, websites have required an SSL certificate. The certificate encrypts data to and from your website. It turns the http:// part of the website to https://.
If the SSL certificate is not installed, or not installed properly, the address bar will state the words “Not secure” (in Chrome), while in others it will have a lock with a red line through it.
What you can do:
Look at your website in a browser to see whether your website is secure.
If it’s not, then you can use a free service such as
https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/
to check the certificate.
Enter your domain in there to check the results. It will state whether an SSL certificate is installed and the expiry date.
Free certificates usually renew by themselves, whereas paid certificates will expire if they haven’t been paid for. Some hosting companies issue free certificates as standard (or when requested), while others insist that you pay for them.
Note: A website says that the images are not secure, you can install a WordPress plugin such as Really Simple SSL to fix the issue.
5 ) You get enquiries about services that you no longer provide
This can mean that the content on your website hasn’t been updated. Changes in your business have not been reflected on your website. One client told me that they were taking several calls every day for services that they no longer provided. As well as wasting your time, it annoys the caller who could have become a client.
What you can do:
Read through your website to see if the content needs updating. Sometimes we forget how much our businesses have evolved, especially in the last few years.
Is the content still relevant?
Does it need to be deleted or simply updated?
If you have team photos on the website are they up to date?
Once you’ve been through your website decide whether you want to update it yourself or whether to get someone else to update it for you.
6 ) Your posts have spam comments on them
It’s a business decision whether or not to allow comments on your blog posts. If you are going to monitor the comments and engage with your visitors, then allow visitor comments and respond to them. If you're not going to respond to comments, then do not allow them on your posts or pages.
Seeing lots of spam comments on a web post means that no one is looking after the website so it's probably outdated.
What you can do:
Switch off comments in the settings and delete spam comments from your website. You will still need to change the settings for posts and pages. The change in the settings only affects new posts and pages. You can perform bulk changes to posts and pages if you have too many to do individually.
7 ) The main text on your website is very small
Years ago, the text on websites was the same sort of size text that you’d read in books at about 10 or 12 pixels. Nowadays, the text size has increased because we are reading websites from so many different devices. The average main text is about 16 pixels, which will usually be okay for a smartphone too.
What you can do:
If you haven't already done so, check what your website looks like on a smartphone. How easy is it to read?
If the font size needs to be increased, you can do this through your theme in the back of your WordPress website.
8 ) Out of date socials have icons on your website
This isn’t specifically about your website although it can still point to your website not being updated. If you haven’t posted any new content to your socials for a long time (sometimes years), then do not have links to them on your website. I click on some social media links to find that their Facebook page hasn’t had any new content in years. It will make you wonder if the website is up to date too.
What you can do:
If you’re not going to be adding new content to your socials any time soon then there’s no point in having them linked from your website.
Worried that your website needs work and not sure where to start?
If you haven’t had one before, book a free 30-minute chocolate and a chat session with me, Karen Leslie, the WordPress Fairy Godmother. If you book the session for Zoom, then we can look around your website together. We may even be able to fix some of these things during the call.
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