Someone asked me today, “What would my company get out of a new website design? I have to pay for a site that doesn’t directly sell anything so essentially the site doesn’t make me any money.” It’s a common argument I’ve heard, phrased differently each time, and I thought it would be a great question to address on here. Why would any existing company need to update or redesign their site if it functions and they don’t hate it?

People are using the internet more and more these days to purchase, do research on services and products, and make buying decisions. Your website is often the first or only interaction you’ll have with a potential customer. Therefore your site needs to act as a digital salesperson giving them the same information and impression as they would get in person or over the phone. Does your website meet that criteria? The points below may not apply to everyone, but some of these apply to tons of sites out there!

1. Your site design isn’t bad, but it isn’t great.

What kind of impression do you want your customers to have of your company? Will your companies values and characteristics shine through in a site that you don’t even love? These are questions to consider. Ultimately you want potential customers to contact you, to get more information, to buy your service or product. Your website needs to be able to sell them on your company and drive them to action.

2. Your site isn’t organized well and isn’t user-friendly.

If your site isn’t user-friendly, chances are people aren’t finding the information they want or need. Research has proven that people hate clicking around to find what they want. The more clicks it takes to get what they want, the less likely they are to find it. If they don’t find out what they want like your contact information, what it is you sell, where you’re located, eventually they will give up and leave your site. Customer lost.

3. Your site doesn’t have social media integration.

Social media is huge these days and if you aren’t already, you should join in on the fun and the networking possibilities. If you’re already a part of the social media scene but they aren’t linked on your site, you’re missing out on potential interaction with people. A visitor on your site might like what they see and want to casually connect with you more. But if they don’t see a link to Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn they may just forget about it.

4. Your site isn’t easily updated.

This is a big one, content management systems are all over the place these days and you’re missing out if your site doesn’t have one. Content management systems allow you to update your content on your own, without any html or css knowledge. It’s a frontend admin panel that should be easy to use making it easy for you to maintain your site’s content. Using this tool allows you to keep your content up to date and relevant to your users.

5. Your homepage doesn’t accurately depict what you do.

I’ve seen many great website designs and not had a clue what it is they do as a company. Your homepage needs to draw visitors in by giving them a quick representation of what you do and how you can benefit them. If they aren’t interested, they’ll leave, simple as that but if they understand what you can do for them, they are more likely to stick around and check out more information.

6. Your site isn’t search engine friendly.

We covered some SEO basics earlier in the year, but I’m sure you know by now that being searchable should be high on the list of priorities for a company. There are some things you can do to make your site more search engine friendly and a few things will certainly hurt those chances. Flash can be cool on a website but search engines can’t read flash and what they can’t read, they can’t use for search engine rankings. Clean, searchable code and content is what search engines need.

If none of these apply to your business, then you’re doing well. But do keep in mind, your site must be functional for your audience and your customers and it must provide value to them. If people aren’t satisfied with your website, they probably won’t contact you for more information and they most likely won’t use your service or product. So in the end, your website could be a great marketing tool to land new customers but it could be a great way to lose customers and degrade their impression of you before they even talk to you. What will you choose to do?