OPINION ZONE: Your website is as old as your dog

February 2009
Dogs age at an average rate of 7 times faster than humans. If we apply that same equation to your website, you may find that your site should "go on to a better place." It's very easy for a viewer to tell if a website is in need of a serious update -- the navigation is hard to follow, the design is plain and boring, the news section has articles dated from 5 years ago, or the functionality is clunky. Having a website requires a lot of time, thought, and resources in the initial development and execution, but creating one is only half the battle.

First of all, why is it so important to even have a website? The standard answer: if people don't find your business on the web, they will certainly find a website of one of your competitors. Most people deem that a business is only valid if it has website--one that's informative, easy-to-use, and doesn't look as though a secretary built it with Yahoo! GeoCities. Your website should look fresh and appealing to promote an image of stability and significance.

Once a site is live, the real challenge lies in maintenance. Frequently updating information on your site encourages people to return. If visitors start to notice that there's no new information each time they visit, they'll stop visiting. There is an expectation that a website should constantly be changing. If the content of your website remains static, not only will it hurt SEO, but users may not revisit it. You may end up losing opportunities to promote new products or services. In addition, websites need to stay compliant with W3C standards and be constructed correctly to be easily found by search engines.

UPDATING & MANAGING

• Keep your website content up-to-date. If you have a news section, it should be time-sensitive like a real news section. If your old news stories are still of interest to your visitors, place them in an archive and allow them to be searchable.
• Ensure that the photos on your site are recent and include your current staff. Are you still using a portrait from the time when you had a full head of hair? Pay attention to stock photos, which can also make a website look dated (say, for instance, the people have mullets or "Farrah Hair").
  If you plan on updating your site regularly, you may want to consider adding a content management system.
• Make sure the copyright date on your site has the current year, or visitors will assume that the site has old information.

A look back at some of the popular, yet annoying, features of websites from the 90's:

• Website counter
• "Under Construction" road signs
• Little, dancing animated GIFs
• Brightly colored gradients
• Web-safe colors used in the background, on text and as borders.
• Primary-colored text
• Background music that you can't stop
• Lack of style sheets which organize text and images
• 800px-wide pages that display on the left side of the screen
• Text that expands to the full width of the table
• Flashing banners
• Colorful clipart, used as background tiles