10 Reasons to Upgrade your Website in 2024

Introduction

Businesses are constantly approached and pressured by design agencies to redesign their website. It has become such a standard practice that most companies no longer see a value in having a website. A business website has become an internet version of the company's brochure which is just a point of reference to learn more about the business and their contact information. The only people contacting a business through their website are vendors looking for work and existing customers with customer service requests. No wonder most contact forms on these websites do not even work because the businesses aren't expecting any sales prospects through their website. So why would you even consider upgrading your website in 2024?

1. Make your Website Functional

You can start by looking at your current website and evaluating what it offers with the exception of some static content and a contact form. Be sure to submit that contact form and see if it works because in most cases it doesn't. In 2024 when the smallest activities in our lives are driven by technology, is your business offering any technologies to your customers, vendors and prospects to make their lives easier?

You can easily map out the business journey of any individual that interacts with your business at any level and identify use cases to make their interaction an unforgettable experience and keep them interested in your business. A functional website developed on the right platform can automate every aspect of your business interactions and maintain a continuous flow of communication within your network without any manual intervention on a day to day basis.

Elastic Component Framework

Cart2Order elastic component framework makes it easy to add or extend functional areas of the websites. Functional websites can collect more data and streamline your business operations. The competition has definitely become tougher. Your website needs more than a new design upgrade in 2024.

2. Build your Website on a Marketing Platform

The next time someone contacts you with a web design proposal, be sure to ask for a demonstration of the marketing capabilities of the software platform they are going to build your website on. 99% of times they will try to convince you into using some open source platform that is so extensible that all your marketing needs can be fulfilled without a doubt. When you actually get into using that platform it is usually too late to realize that you were sold into using a variety of systems that all look and work differently but somehow communicate with each other to give you a unified marketing system that does not work as expected.

The rule of thumb in 2024: Use software that grows your business, not just your web designer's business!

There is a difference between a content management platform and a marketing platform. A content management platform provides tools to update your website's content. A marketing platform on the other hand provides tools to analyze, track and communicate with your website's visitors in addition to providing tools to update the content.

A marketing platform is an all in one integrated software that helps you operate, manage and communicate through your website from one interface that tracks every activity across all your communication channels. You really want to ensure that no website visitor falls through the cracks and that is the key to expanding your online network.

Here are some of the key features you must look for, while evaluating a marketing platform for your website. These features must be out of the box product offerings without you having to spend any dollars and cents on these implementations.

• Tracking and Analytics - Get a complete report of your website visitors which includes the number of visitors, their locations, devices etc. filtered by date. You shouldn't have to rely on third party tools and go to a different software to get this information and remember multiple logins.
• Email List Builder - When a website visitor takes any action on your website that involves providing an email address then that address should automatically be added to the respective email list with you having complete access to these lists within your marketing platform at all times.
• Integrated Email Marketing - You should be able to create email campaigns and send out mass emails to your email lists with ease and track the related analytics such as open rates, click rates and so on. A complete marketing platform will offer these features within one single software that is used to manage your website so you don't have to use other email marketing systems and go through the hassle of keeping your marketing lists up to date.
• Marketing Automation - One of the least used features yet the most powerful one is a complete game changer for most businesses. Setting up triggers to send out a series of email and text messages when someone interacts with your business can put your business ahead of your competitors. The level of professionalism and customer service offered through these prompt messages definitely makes a huge impact and creates an unforgettable experience.
• Integrated Communication Tools - Chat, email, text? Are you able to communicate with anyone that interacts with your website? These communication tools are different from the tools that enable mass messaging. One on one messaging is critical in addressing business inquiries, providing prompt customer service and even in maintaining efficient vendor communications. Communication tools combined with automatic follow ups and reminders can help you operate at a very high efficiency.
• Personalization - Offering personalized products, services, offers, content and communication to your customers or prospects is only possible if your marketing platform is automatically tracking and learning from user behaviors at all times. Be sure to get a demonstration of how your next marketing platform offers this type of personalization.
• AI Capabilities - One of biggest challenges faced by website owners is finding the time to update the content on their website. This includes keeping up with the publishing of blog articles, updating product and service descriptions etc. In 2024 Artificial Intelligence or Generative AI can help solve this problem by generating the relevant content automatically. With very little input and editorial effort from the website owners the AI tools can generate extensive articles which can be published online without requiring a lot of time on the part of busy entrepreneurs. 
• Reminders & Notifications - Operating a functional website that helps grow your business requires you to stay on top of a number different activities which can be quite difficult to keep track of. While the marketing platform must perform all the critical functions of a website, it should still keep you in the loop so you can monitor the progress and make necessary adjustments. Automatic reminders and built-in notifications are designed just to do that. Any well designed marketing platform must send out automatic reminders and notifications to all parties involved at all times.
• SEO Tools - SEO is a slow moving target and is usually very difficult to achieve the desired search engine rankings in most cases. However it is important to remember that having the right kind of optimization within your web pages is an unavoidable step towards attracting search engines to your website and improving your domain's authority and reputation. Built in tools to optimize search engine friendly headlines, descriptions and other related tags must be a basic necessity for any website management platform with support for marketing.
• All in One - As you have been reading through these requirements for your website marketing platform, you must have been relating to different systems and online ads that offer these functionality. The important thing to evaluate is whether it is better to use 5 different systems to accomplish your marketing tasks or should you be using one software system that has all the marketing essentials integrated into an "all in one platform" that manages all the data flow internally. Even the largest of corporations struggle with their data housed in different systems and employ teams of engineers to ensure that these systems talk to each other on an ongoing basis. So the answer is simple - lesser the number of systems, better the efficiency and lower the ongoing costs.
• Ongoing Cost - We have covered a lot of functionality that any good marketing platform should offer. This should also be very affordable to level the playing field among businesses of different sizes. If you are spending any amount of money towards developing or integrating various systems then you are on the wrong path. That is usually that case with choosing open source systems to manage your website. Web designers and developers love to emphasize the free aspect of open source but fail to mention the ongoing costs of integrations with other systems and the growing complexity these integrations bring to your operations. You should not have to pay anything more than a one time setup fee with a low monthly subscription for all the features if you signup with the right system.

3. Focus on your Existing Network

Every marketer will tell you that growing your website traffic equates to spending more money on SEO and paid advertising. That only works for the SEO and advertising companies because they are the only ones that are growing with that strategy. For smaller businesses it is almost impossible to spend 3 to 5 thousand dollars a month on online marketing and depending on the type of business it may not even make sense most of the times. Then you may have heard about email marketing and there are players that will charge you for that service without telling you about the downsides of email marketing. Cold emails are guaranteed to end up in spam and will ruin your domain reputation over time. If you really want to utilize email marketing as an effective strategy then you must start by focusing on your existing network of people who know you and will not be offended to hear from you. Start with helpful campaigns by sharing knowledge and updates that add value to your network. Redirect these people to your website so they are know where to check updates related to your business. Having a functional and helpful website is a precursor to running successful email campaigns.

4. Leverage AI for Regular Content Updates

One of most significant challenges faced by website owners is carving time out of their busy schedule to create fresh and engaging content for their website. Generative AI is the newest technology that generates written content using keywords and suggestions. Content generated by AI may not be highest quality but serves as an excellent framework for a good first draft. With a little editorial effort the website owners can publish highly engaging content on their website with the help of AI. 

Smart marketing systems can even generate suggested topics and keywords for various helpful articles and can notify you regularly when the articles are ready to be reviewed and published.

5. Make Email Communication a Top Priority

Everything in this blog article suggests that upgrading your website in 2024 means making your website functional and useful to increase user engagement. To really take advantage of your web presence, retention of website visitors is more important than focusing on getting new visitors. What good is it going to do to your business to get one time visitors even if they bought something through your website once and never came back again.

Having a website that is tightly integrated with your email marketing system can do wonders to your overall marketing strategy. Imagine your network getting notified every time you publish a new blog article or release a news article. How about sending a series of automatic follow ups and reminders when a website visitor books an appointment through your website. When a customer makes a purchase on your e-commerce website and starts receiving emails and offers for related products they are more likely to return for more.

An automatic email system that maintains continuous communication will not only increase user engagement but will also bring in new prospects when people share their positive experiences and offers with their peers.

Make improved email communication your top priority in 2024 in a way that keeps your emails out of the spam and builds your brand through a new and upgraded web presence.

6. Introduce Text Notifications

Text messages work great in some situations but can be very counter productive and annoying in others. Identify the use cases within your business where text message notifications can be helpful and effective. Encourage your customers and prospects to provide cell phone numbers to receive reminders and notifications to keep track of important business communications. Sending a text when the task is completed or reaches an important milestone would be well received while also providing an assurance of a higher quality of service from your business at the same time. A newly upgraded website in 2024 can be a great launch pad for introducing text notifications in your business. Allow your network to signup and manage their notifications through your website and be a high tech company that cares!

7. Focus on Visitor Retention vs Growing Traffic

It is every business' dream to launch a newly designed website and start seeing an uptick in online traffic, get new business inquiries and lots of new sales opportunities that never stops. It never really works that way, does it? Well its because most people think that the only way to use website as an effective marketing tool is to get more traffic. Even when you talk to your marketing agency, they will start suggesting ways to grow traffic through SEO, content writing, advertising etc. But what happens to the visitors who did land on your website through one of these expensive marketing techniques and forgot all about you the moment they closed the web browser or moved on to a different website?

If your website is setup to retain visitors by targeting people who need your products and services and helping them with engaging tools and contents to get the most out of your offerings then the chances of loosing these online visitors is going to be a lot lower. If your website is more helpful than your competitors then more people are going to visit it when they need to learn more about your area of expertise.

Don't get a new website in 2024 if all it has to offer is a new look. Get a website that is packed with tools to drive user engagement and focusses on adding value to your existing set of customers, prospects and vendors and watch your online traffic grow just by focusing on retention.

8. Give your Website Visitors Reasons to Share

Content is still the king in 2024! Look at the various social media platforms that thrive on content and pay hefty commissions to keep their top performing creators on the platform. One great article or video can bring thousands of potential customers to your website. The only important thing to remember is if that happens then your website must be ready to capture the most from this surge. Investing time and energy into creating a great piece of content published on a poorly functioning website is a big waste of time. Just like email marketing, content marketing is another big driver of new and existing visitors to your website with the one and only prerequisite - get a functional website on a marketing platform.

9. Track and Personalize

Growing your business starts with improving your customer experiences. In 2024 it is possible to collect, analyze and track customer behavior better than ever before. AI is another great addition to the list of technologies available just to do that. If your website offers a way for your customers to sign up and access their account then you can offer a personalized experience every time they are on your website. Even if you cannot offer an online account, you can still track your visitors' behavior through cookies and show them the content tailored to their interests. All this is possible only if your website platform is intelligent and is designed to offer personalization so you can focus on creating the various rules and scenarios and the underlying system takes care of the rest. Look for a website platform that has built-in personalization capabilities.

10. Invest in Training and Education

One way to cut through all the noise online and be heard is to establish your expertise. Your current and future customers  have a lot of unanswered questions and that is one of the biggest reasons they are unable to stick with one vendor for whatever they are looking for. Your current and future customers usually end up making their purchase decisions based on factors that are rarely in their best interest. Imparting training and education is a great way to increase awareness around your products and services. This helps the customers make an informed decision and also rely on your expertise for their future purchases. Create a training section on your website and upload useful documents, videos and articles to educate your audience.