Your Outdated Website is Hurting Your Brand - 4 Proven Ways to Fix It

Your business could be losing out on leads, customers, and revenue due to an outdated design that lacks these features.

In this guide, I'll cover four often-overlooked elements that make a website truly effective. Instead of the usual advice like "good design" or "strong SEO," we'll explore the psychology behind a high-converting website and how you can apply these strategies to your own business.

Here are five ways to fix your outdated website and boost sales.

1 - Unlock the Power of Social Proof for Your Business

I could go on for hours about this topic, but I’ll spare you the boredom. Social proof is one of the most important factors in creating a high-performing business website, yet it’s often overlooked in many of the guides I read online. Widely used in marketing and sales, social proof is a powerful psychological concept. The statistics speak for themselves.

First, let’s break down what social proof actually is:

Social proof is a psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others in an attempt to reflect correct behaviour for a given situation.

In simpler terms, if others are doing something, it must be the right thing to do. This is a natural instinct that kicks in when someone feels uncertain or lacks information about a situation.

So, how does this relate to marketing and website design?

By strategically implementing social proof into your website, you can build trust, gain credibility, and influence visitor behaviour on your site. The principle is simple: people trust people.

“Studies show that visitors are 58% more likely to convert when interacting with a testimonial” (source)

Here are some effective ways to build trust on your website by using social proof:

• Testimonials - A testimonial section allows people to connect with other people by showcasing positive feedback from real users, which can influence others to take similar actions. Authenticity is key. A flood of perfect 5-star reviews with no negatives can seem fake and turn people off—though that’s a topic for another post.
• Videos - A professionally shot video on your landing page lets visitors connect instantly with the human side of your business. People trust people. Whether it’s you talking about your mission or your goals, a good video can dramatically increase the chances of someone taking action on your site.
• Case studies / Projects - Showcase your work in a way that feels real and engaging. Don’t settle for a dull gallery section - design a visually appealing projects page that tells the story behind your work. You can even incorporate other social proof techniques such as testimonials or video walk-throughs of each project. People will love it (and your conversion rates will too).

2 - Improve your Content (The Correct Way)

This follows on from the previous point. Building trust with your audience starts with your website content. High-quality content drives engagement, fosters trust, and ultimately converts visitors into customers.

When I mention content, I’m referring to both text and media. Especially media that features real people. People trust people. Our eyes are drawn to human faces, and seeing an actual person - rather than a fake stock image - significantly boosts trust with your visitors.

So how do you create "High Quality Content" for your site?

• Ensure all your content is optimised for SEO: High search engine rankings should be a top priority if you want to grow your business. Your developer should have an effective SEO strategy plan that targets relevant keywords through your websites content.

• Create an Engaging User Experience: Content that meets user needs, answers questions, or solves problems keeps visitors on your site longer. The longer users stay and engage with your content, the more likely they are to convert. Poor or irrelevant content leads to high bounce rates. Quality content encourages exploration and ongoing engagement.

• Build Trust and Authority: Content like testimonial videos, team introductions, and case studies provide social proof and transparency. These elements help build trust and establish your authority with your audience.

Bounce rate - The percentage of visitors to a particular website who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page.

3 - Improve & Manage your Page Speed

How can site speed affect a websites growth?

If simple terms, faster loading times can contribute to higher rankings on google.

• User Engagement and Bounce Rate - Even if your website is otherwise perfect, a slow-loading landing page can hinder its potential. For instance, if your site takes 3 seconds to load, users are 32% more likely to leave. With a 6-second load time, the bounce rate can increase by 106% (source).
• SEO and visibility - As of August 2024, Google holds a 94% market share in the search engine industry, meaning most browsers rely on Google’s search engine and its crawler to display their search results. Understanding this is crucial for SEO. In essence, the speed of your website influences how frequently it gets indexed and how many pages of your site are shown in search results. This, in turn, can hinder the amount of traffic your site receives and your potential for attracting new customers. So its important to maintain a fast loading site!

Crawler - A crawler is a program used by search engines to automatically discover and scan websites. Their purpose is to index the content of websites all across the Internet so that those websites can appear in search engine results.

How can you prevent your site from slow load times?

Working with a skilled website development agency or individual can help. Proper implementation of features, designs, images, and videos by an expert ensures your site remains fast and effective. Poor execution can slow down your site and negatively impact user experience. Make sure you have access to regular site metric and analytics reports so that you can manage this effectively and make necessary changes.

You can also use free development tools such as Google Lighthouse to obtain an insight into how optimised your site is. Read more about Lighthouse here.

4 - Add a Business blog or Case studies page

How can a blog help grow you site?

A blog can greatly enhance your website's SEO and page rankings by producing relevant content, boosting site authority, and driving traffic. Blog posts are also great because they can connect with social media, creating multiple traffic sources and increasing overall visibility.

• Search engines favour websites that are regularly updated with fresh, relevant content - A business blog allows for regular content updates, signalling to Google and other search engines that your site is maintained and kept up to date. This boosts your site's relevance and can improve its ranking on search result pages.
• Keywords, Keywords and more keywords - Search engines use keywords to match users' search queries with relevant sites. Blogs are particularly effective for this because they allow you to target and incorporate large amounts of keywords that can be directly relevant to assisting users searches.

Take a look at this example that explains why blogs are so effective at generating traffic through keywords:

Consider a veterinary company in Leicester. Initially, they focused on ranking for the highly competitive term "veterinary companies in Leicester." For new sites, competing for broad keywords can be tough. Instead, targeting "long-tail keywords" can be more effective.

Long-tail keywords - Search terms that are longer and more specific than other keywords, usually having less competition.

The company then added an educational blog addressing common pet-related questions. By conducting keyword research, they optimised their blog for these specific queries. These searches have less competition, which helped their site appear more frequently in search results and drive more traffic each from blog post.

As their blog gained traction and traffic, Google recognised the site as more relevant and active, and started ranking the site for broader searches, which they were originally failing at.

This demonstrates why a solid SEO strategy and regularly updated content is crucial for boosting your business’s online visibility.

There’s never a better time to optimise your website.

I hope these tips have given you some ideas on how you can revamp your website and grow your business online.

In today’s competitive digital market, having a visually appealing website is only part of the equation. To truly succeed, your site needs to be optimised for trust, speed, content quality, and SEO. By integrating social proof, refining your content, improving page speed, and maintaining a regularly updated blog or project page, you can transform an outdated website into a high-converting powerhouse.

These often-overlooked elements go beyond surface-level design and tap into the psychology and behaviour of your target audience. By applying these insights, you’ll position your business to capture more leads, drive sales, and ultimately see growth online.

Need Help Optimising Your Website?

I specialise in creating high-converting, modern websites that drive growth and promote great user experience. If you’re ready to take your website to the next level, feel free to get in touch and schedule a free consultation for your business. I'd be happy to help.