Why B2B websites lose effectiveness over time

amy

Amy Culham
Digital Marketing Manager
22/12/2022

It's important for a business to keep their website up to date. If you aren't doing that, then over time your site will become ineffective and produce less leads for you.

You need to make sure your website is always working at its best if you want it to be effective in helping grow your business. This can be accomplished by considering these seven reasons why B2B websites lose effectiveness over time:

Design is outdated, obsolete

You should always strive to make your business’ website design original, modern and attractive. The design of your website is an important part of its overall effectiveness, it is a reflection of your brand and how you want people to feel about your company.

But over time, the design of a website can become outdated and obsolete. If your website looks old compared to competitors', customers may choose not to stay on your site because they think your products or service isn’t as good or that you don't care about their online experience.

The copy isn't relevant anymore

If your website is not getting updated, it can become stale and irrelevant. As time passes and new trends come into play, the information on your site becomes outdated, possibly even containing errors. You may have created an amazing website that has all the bells and whistles, but if it isn’t relevant anymore then it could be costing your business money.

Not updating your website copy can cause customers to get frustrated if they have to read outdated information or find dead links. They might think that you are not interested in their needs anymore or wonder if you are even still in business.

Your target audience has changed, you aren't reaching them the way you should

Businesses change over time and so can your target audience, meaning the most effective way to reach them will change too.

It's important to understand who your target audience is and how they use your product or service. If you haven't re-evaluated your target audience in the last two years, then it’s time do so now. Are there new trends or technologies that have emerged that affect how people buy? If so, then this needs to be reflected on your website.

target audience

The competition has made changes that leave you behind

If you want to maintain a strong online presence for your company, then it's important to keep up with current trends and changes in technology. You may have been doing well in search rankings for some time, but now a competitor has made a change to their website, and you could find yourself falling behind. Or perhaps new competitors have popped up that have a better-looking sites than yours does - or at least ones that seem more modern and up-to-date than yours.

SEO ranking has declined due to algorithm changes by Google.

Old sites can suffer from a decline in search engine rankings, but it's not all bad news. Older sites that have been maintained and kept up to date may face fewer problems than those with years of neglect.

The best way to ensure that your B2B website is always relevant and effective is to stay on top of changes in the algorithms used by Google (and other search engines). These are constantly evolving as technology improves, so it's essential for businesses to stay on top of them or risk losing out on traffic from customers who want what they offer.

Incremental bugs and other oddities that crop up over time.

Bugs are a common problem, especially with websites that have been around for a while. As time passes, more content gets added and the site is updated, these glitches may become more noticeable. This can lead to poor user experience for those visiting the site.

webiste 404

New CMS feature sets are available that aren't being used.

As new features and capabilities become available via your site's CMS, you should be testing them for your website. This will ensure that your site stays as effective as possible and works well with the newest technology. If you aren't doing this, a competitor could be using all of these new tools to improve their B2B website while yours stays stagnant.

Another important point is to make sure that any new CMS updates don't break anything on your site. It's imperative that every update or security patch doesn't introduce bugs into the code since they can cause major issues with functionality, aesthetics and even security!

The bottom line is this, business websites are a fantastic way to attract customers and promote products and services. However, you cannot rely on creating your website and leaving it in the same place for years without making changes. If you are still on the fence about whether you need to update your B2B website regularly, ask yourself: why do you need a website in the first place? If your answer includes any variation of the words "to promote", "to advertise", "to sell", "to generate leads" or any other synonym for sales, you should be keeping your website up to date.

If in doubt, appoint an experienced B2B website agency to audit your website to identify what areas of your website need improving.

This article was updated on , filed under website design, lead generation.

Get the latest B2B website news straight to your inbox