Even Websites Age: Here’s Why And After How Long

Find Out The Main Causes Of The “Aging” Of Your Website And How To Fix It

Some time has passed since you put your website or e-commerce online, and you are noticing a slight drop in performance: the reason could be your site’s “physiological” aging. Here are the signs to pay attention to that suggest that the time has come to proceed with updating and restyling your website.

Websites, Especially E-Commerce, Age

If you think a website is eternal, you are very wrong:  it is true that creating a website or e-commerce is a significant investment and that it often takes months, if not years, to recover from the expense. However, the sometimes high cost of the investment cannot justify the belief that a site created 10 years ago is still functional:  the world of the web, you should know by now, evolves at the speed of light, and with it, behaviors evolve, consumer needs, and purchasing habits.

The quality standards to which buyers are accustomed are becoming ever higher:  your customers expect you to have a site that is beautiful to look at, easy to use, and also why not captivating, pleasant, and user friendly. This is where the need to update and restructure your website periodically comes from: if you want to be competitive in the market, always acquire new customers, and outperform the competition, you have to deal with a rapidly evolving scenario and make sure you are always up to date with the times, ready to meet the expectations of your customers, even the most demanding.

What Are The Main Signs Of “Aging”?

As I told you at the beginning,  one of the main alarm bells signaling that the time has come to renew your site consists of a significant drop in performance or sales:  if, from a certain moment, your site stopped to convert as it did in the past, maybe it’s time to ask yourself some questions.

Of course, it is not said that the problem is the website: the drop in sales could depend on the saturation of the market and on products/services that are no longer attractive in the eyes of consumers.

The advice, therefore, is to devote yourself to an in-depth market analysis,  which you can also entrust to a web agency, to exclude other possible causes of the drop in sales or visits to your website. Once factors related to the market or your business have been excluded, you can analyze your website to understand what no longer works as before and where and with what changes to intervene. Among the main reasons  for performance degradation related to an aging site  are:

1. A reduction in the  loading speed  of the site’s pages, caused by the aging of the  CMS (for example, in the event of missing updates to subsequent versions) or by the increase in the number of pages or products, which can cause a slowdown of the servers
2. A graphic aspect  that is no longer appealing, such as images and old-style text content that are no longer able to capture the attention of the consumer and push him to convert
3. A reduced and obsolete functioning compared to new generation sites, for example, a poorly organized product page, a non-intuitive and long-to-complete checkout, etc.

How Long Does It Take For A Site To Get Old?

The answer is: it depends. If you have noticed one or more of these signs, it is still the case to seriously think about a  total restyling of your website,  regardless of how old it is. The speed of aging of a website depends on various factors. Let’s see some of them:

1. e-commerce generally ages earlier than a showcase site,  both in the back-end part, relating to the internal management of the site, and in the front-end part, i.e., the one relating to the visual aspect as well as user-side usability
2. The age of a website must also be calculated based on the business sector in which your company operates. In sectors such as fashion or luxury, where there is a very rapid turnover of trends, even the visual of a site is called upon to adapt to current trends

In principle,  every 2 years, a check on loading speed, usability, etc., should be carried out. To understand if your website, especially if it is an e-commerce, is still functional and competitive.

What Improvements To Implement For Your Website?

If your website no longer works as well as before and the reason, you are sure, is its physiological “aging,” the advice I give you is to try to understand which aspects can be changed immediately, at no cost or in any case content, and which improvements instead require a real revolution of your site. As I told you,  the changes to make your site become a real web dragon again vary according to the type of site (showcase or e-commerce) and the business sector.

I’ll give you some examples to explain better. If, in the last six months, you have doubled the number of products in your e-commerce and you have noticed a slowdown in the site loading speed,  perhaps it is the case to increase the space on the servers by purchasing a new license and upgrading to the latest version of your  CMS.

If your company operates in the wedding sector and more than two years have passed since the creation of your website, perhaps it is the case that you take a tour of the competitor sites to understand if, from a visual point of view, your site is still in line with the latest trends in the wedding world or if it is appropriate to give it a refresh.

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When A Website Gets Old, Various Ways Exist To Make It Shine Again

Let’s see what the  main changes  you can implement to ensure a long life for your site (and your business) are:

1. Buy new space on the server if you have enlarged your product catalog or the number of pages on your site/blog.
2. Update your  CMS  to the latest version allowed (remember that a paid upgrade is required after some time)
3. Make a restyling of the visual aspect of your site (layout, color palette, etc.) necessary if you have changed your logo or claim to be evaluated in any case after a certain period.
4. Buy plugins to improve the usability of your e-commerce, for example, a one-step check-out plugin.
5. Evaluate the other  CMS on the market and the specific characteristics of each one to understand if it is appropriate to make a choice more in line with your needs.
6. Ask a web agency for a quote to redo your website from scratch: the cost could surprise you positively!