Have you fallen out of love with your website?

Have I caught you in a moment of disillusionment? You’ve been sitting there thinking about your website, and recalling happier times. You’d just got a brand new website for your business and you were so excited! The possibilities! You admired it from all angles, on your desktop, your laptop and even on your phone while you were out and about. You clicked links. You opened and closed menus. You browsed the shiny new photos. You felt so sophisticated and were certain that this new website and your business would live happily ever after.

But after a while the novelty wore off. You started seeing less of each other. Sometimes you’d go whole weeks without even thinking about each other. Your website would stay out all night, and the sad part was that you wouldn’t even miss it.

Is this the end? Was it a waste of money? Is it time to just go back to Facebook and forget the whole website thing?

Before we talk about your options, let’s take a few minutes to think about some reasons why you’ve fallen out of love with your website. This is not about assigning blame; it’s about realising that maybe it’s more fixable than you might think.

Five reasons you don’t love your website anymore – and what you can do about it

1 – You’re not getting much business from it – Some new website owners have mistakenly believed that the minute their website went live it would be like opening the floodgates, and new sales leads would literally be flowing through the front door. They quickly become disappointed when they check their visitor reports and they’re not seeing their website appear in Google for the search terms they expected.

If this happened to you then you should be concerned because that’s the reason you paid for a website – to boost business.

But to remedy this problem you need to realise that it’s not necessarily your website that’s at fault. Just having a website doesn’t guarantee anyone will see it, or more specifically that the right people will see it. You need to have a plan to promote and drive traffic to your website. How can you do that? Read this post for some ideas you can put into action.

2 – It’s broken – How long has it been broken? Maybe you don’t know because you haven’t checked it for weeks. This illustrates the problem when you fall out of love with your website; you’re just not checking in often enough to know if something’s wrong.

Your hosting provider will be checking to make sure your website is still live on the internet, but they won’t be checking to make sure all the buttons, links or the contact form is working, so make sure you have a plan to do a quick 5-minute sanity check on your website at least every week to make sure there’s nothing that could be preventing potential customers contacting you.

If you encounter any problems with your website get them fixed as soon as possible, either using the WordPress content management system that came with your PogoStick website, or contact us to sort it out. In most cases, fixes are free and covered as part of your monthly maintenance plan.

3 – You don’t like the look of it – This can happen to any website; what was the trend six months ago is maybe starting to look a little dated. Styles come and go; one minute it’s rounded buttons with a drop shadow to create a clever 3D effect – the next it’s flat design. Also what might not have been possible a few years back due to the limitations of internet browsers, is now possible.

But sometimes you just want a change, or maybe your marketing guy is pushing for a brand refresh. Whatever it is, just about all businesses will update their website look every few years, even if it’s just to keep things interesting.

With your PogoStick website the process is not as daunting as you might think. We build most of our sites on the flexible WordPress framework that allows for a complete style change without having to change the underlying foundation of the website.

If you’re keen on a makeover, the first step is to think about what sort of message you want to send to prospective customers. Describe your business’s personality in a few words – fun, creative, professional, relaxed, colourful, formal – this can guide the new look for your website. Maybe pick out some other websites you like the look of. Then get in touch and we can provide you with some information on costs and the time involved.

4 – You wished it did more – Maybe when you started out, you opted for a basic website, something that put your flag in the sand of the WWW beach, claiming your turf and giving you an online address.

But maybe this static, brochure-style website just isn’t enough for your growing business now. You can see how more and more of the things we used to do offline are now being done online. Buying things, booking reservations, sharing documents or planning events – and you wonder if maybe your own website could be taught some new tricks.

The short answer is yes it can – and it may be easier (and cheaper) than you think.

Some new tricks you can teach your website include:

Interactive map – Give customers a clear picture of your location and how to get there.
Blog – Improve SEO and reach out to your customers with regular posts on industry topics.
Shopping cart – Allow customers to buy direct from your website using their credit card.
Booking calendar – Add events and allow people to book and pay for tickets. Can also be used to reserve rental equipment or book accommodation.
Gallery / slideshow – Share photos of your business to visually communicate why you’re awesome!
Customer testimonials – Add positive reviews to your website or logos of other businesses you work with.
Online form – Forget paper forms. Have customers enter details directly into a form on your website and have it emailed to you or collated into a spreadsheet.
Video – Add a YouTube video to a page.
Sharing options – Add ways for visitors to share your website on their Facebook page.
Security certificate – Not only does this make visitors feel safer sharing their details on your website, it can improve your Google rankings (free with Premium hosting).

Learn more about our website add-ons.

5 – You’re envious of other business’s websites – Ah discontent, the leading cause of falling out of love with your website; you’re looking at the competition and wondering why their website seems so much better.

Well, before you get all green with envy, take a minute to consider that for starters they probably paid way too much for it (likely if they didn’t buy from us 😉 and, secondly, you can, in most cases, overtake them without too much expense or hard work.

It’s important to remember that your website can change – you just need to take action, even if it’s just sending us an email to find out what’s involved. It’s [email protected] in case you didn’t have it handy – we look forward to hearing from you!

Before you know it, it’ll be your competition envious of you – their shade of green would be even more intense if they knew how little it had cost you!

How can you fall back in love with your website?

Don’t panic! Just because you don’t love your website now, it doesn’t mean it’s over or that it’s unfixable. You just need to decide to do something about it. Let us help you patch things up and before you know it, you’ll be all head over heels with your website again.

Have you fallen out of love with your website?