7 Stranger Things About Your Old Website
The Demogorgon can easily smell the difference between a shiny new website and… well, a website that has gone stale. Most websites don’t have The Demogorgon as part of their target audience, but rest assured, humans can certainly recognize a smelly old website when they encounter one. It’s not too late to get your website out of The Upside Down. Take a look at the items below to determine if your website needs to be saved.
1
Flash Intros
While very popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s, we can’t think of anything more frightening than a website that still has a Flash intro in 2019. Flash intros impede your website visitors from quickly getting to the “meat” of your website, most look tacky by 2019 standards, and there are now numerous security vulnerabilities associated with Flash as well. Lastly, almost all major web browsers have Flash disabled by default.
2
Stale Content
If a website visitor only comes to your website once in their life, stale content is a non-issue. But most website owners want repeat visitors, and the more often someone visits your website, the more likely they’ll begin to notice if your site’s content rarely (or never) changes. Change up your site’s home page every once in a while, and consider adding a blog to keep repeat visitors engaged in your brand.
3
Lack of Mobile-Responsiveness
“Lack of Mobile-Responsiveness” sounds like a mouthful of Eggo waffles, but it’s not that scary. If your website looks wonky on tablets and mobile devices, or if your site isn’t easy to navigate on those devices’ smaller screens, it means that your website isn’t “responsive”. With the number of tablet users and mobile users on the rise over the past several years, now is the time to make certain your website looks terrific and has an optimal user experience on devices of any screen size.
4
Skinny Website Layout
In the early days of the world wide web, websites were designed to take up less screen width due to monitors of that time having far less the resolution that we see in today’s monitors. When an old “skinny” website is viewed on a modern monitor, that site will only take up the middle portion of the screen… hence the “skinny” website layout. This is usually an obvious sign that a website is ancient.
5
No Content Management System
An old website’s lack of content management system doesn’t necessarily impact the end-user experience, but a website can certainly go stale quicker if it’s nearly impossible to edit the site’s content yourself. The majority of modern websites are built using a content management system (CMS), which makes managing your website’s content a breeze… even if you don’t know anything about programming.
6
Out-of-Date Style
Sure… every website should have its own style that is in line with that brand’s personality, message, etc. But if your website’s style starts looking like circa-1983 Barb (RIP), your website’s visitors are going to begin to question the validity of your site. Design trends and styles are ever-changing, and it’s important to give your website a refresh every few years. Stay true to your brand, of course… but giving your site a “fresh coat of paint” from time to time informs your website visitors that your site is still relevant.
7
Old Copyright Year
Nothing says “I don’t care about my website” quite as much as having an old copyright year in your site’s footer. It’s super-easy to have your copyright year auto-increment every year. (Just ask your web team for help with this one.) Or if you have access to edit your website yourself, simply make a point to update your site’s copyright year on an annual basis. This might seem like an insignificant task, but website visitors will certainly notice if your site’s copyright year is perpetually stuck in the past.
Yeah… we realize we missed an opportunity to create a list of Eleven items (as opposed to just 7), but we didn’t want to force it.
Dustin, Mike, Lucas, Eleven, Max and Will won’t be able to help you with the stranger things about your old website… but we can! If you have any questions regarding how we might be able to lend a hand with your website, fill out the short form below or give us a call at 804-577-8679.
About the author:
Christopher Rhines
Partner, Director of Development
Christopher is the Director of Development and one of the partners at Torx. In addition to keeping Torx's Richmond office firing on all cylinders, he can often be found deep in the trenches, building custom content management systems and WordPress-powered websites. He still remembers how to write Basic computer programs on Apple IIs and Commodore 64s.