Concrete signs you need to update your website

Your website is your best salesperson. 

It’s on 24/7, and has bandwidth to deal with dozens (if not hundreds) of visitors potential buyers at a time. 

They often begin their purchasing process by asking for recommendations, browsing search engine results and looking at the websites of alternative service providers. Just as in every other encounter, first impressions are lasting, and you only have a few moments to make a good impression.  

Most companies recognise that they need to have a website. At their best, websites serve the company and the company’s customers, offering a useful channel for information, generating leads for sales and telling the most up-to-date story about the company. At their worst, websites can look like dinosaurs, stuck in the past and abandoned by the business, last updated in 2005.  

Often, it does not take more than a cursory glance to notice that the website needs an overhaul. If your home page uses a font that screams 1990s and it is illustrated with blurred photos from an image bank, it is high time you updated your site.  

However, things are not always clear and straightforward. The idea of updating the website often creeps up on a company or is suggested in an appraisal. A feeling that “something needs to be done” hangs in the air but nobody can put their finger on exactly what should be done.  

In this article, I’ll try to give you enough to think about to answer the following question: “Does my website need a refresh?” 

Think strategy first. Is your website aligned with your company strategy? 

Your potential customers should not have to guess what services your company offers. 

As stated above, your website is your best salesperson. And just like if your sales team doesn't row is the same direction as your business, if your website is just living on its own, you’re heading straight into a concrete wall. 

Ask yourself: what is the beating heart that generates cash flow for my business? 

Take a good look at your website. Does your website communicate your core business? I’m asking because oftentimes, companies’ strategies and plans change (as they do, as they should, considering that nothing around us is static). But my experience shows that websites don’t move as fast. 

And that’s a big mistake. 

My advice to you is, at the very least, to review your positioning, your differentiation points and your current content strategy. 

Review your positioning  

Your positioning is the foundation of your website.  

It tells visitors exactly where you stand in the market, who you serve, and why your solution matters. And so, if your website doesn’t make this crystal clear within seconds, you’ll lose potential customers before they’ve even engaged.  

In short, reviewing the alignment between your website and business reality will let you know how big of a refresh you need to consider. 

Review your differentiation points 

I know how banal this sounds, but it’s worth repeating: blending in is the fastest way to be ignored. 

If your website sounds like every competitor, you’ve already lost half the battle. Differentiation means highlighting what makes your approach, product, or service uniquely valuable. 

And, to be clear, it’s not just about listing features. It’s about answering the WHY. Why should your ICP choose you over the competition? 

To address the elephant in the room: No, AI won’t tell you what makes you unique. 

The answers you’re looking for lie with your current ICP customers. Ask them why they chose you and how you differ from the other companies out there. You can’t make this up. Focus on what makes you look unique in the eyes of your happy customers and use that to conquer your market. 

Review your content strategy 

A strong content strategy is what differentiates boring websites from well-functioning sales engines. 

Now, your content strategy is the formalisation of all of the above (positioning and what makes you unique). 

Your content is the ongoing conversation you have with your market. This is why a misaligned or outdated content strategy signals stagnation and will create a gap between you and your prospective customers. 

In other words, if a quick look at your most recent (past 6 months) content efforts reveals any sort of disconnect with the reality of your business, it means it’s time to rethink what you’re doing and saying. 

Are you converting enough relevant visitors into contacts? 

Let's make one thing clear; even a beautiful website may be ineffective at generating quality leads if it does not inspire visitors to engage. 

It’s really about building an experience that makes sense for your visitors and prospective customers, and making sure that each and every touchpoint is helping them moving down in your funnel. 

Here are concrete areas to explore to assess whether or not you need to refocus your attention on your website. 

Review your bounce rates 

A high bounce rate often means visitors leave quickly without engaging further, suggesting a mismatch between what they expected to find and what the page they see actually delivers. 

In short, analyzing your bounce rate will reveal (if any) potential gaps in your messaging, targeting, or user experience, and provide insight into whether your website is truly aligned with your audience’s needs. 

Of course, this is easier said than done. In application, attempting to lower your bounce rate means you need to be ready to experiment to try and figure out what leads visitors to leave prematurely. 

Review your conversion rates 

If we forget about bounce rates for a moment, the next question is whether or not visitors do what you expect from them. In other words, do they convert (filling out forms, signing up for demos, downloading resources, subscribing to your newsletter, etc.). 

Here again, low conversion rates can derive from various causes: 

• Unclear calls-to-action, 
• friction in the user journey,  
• irrelevant offers 
• Etc. 

Of course, a blog post won’t tell you what affects your conversion rates. A thorough analysis will. 

Are you providing a solid user experience? 

Our collective tolerance for what an acceptable website experience is has significantly changed in the past years. 

In short: 

• if your website is slow to load, you’ll lose visitors. 
• if your navigation isn't optimised, you’ll lose visitors. 
• if your website isn’t mobile friendly, you’ll lose visitors. 
• If your website looks dated or doesn’t inspire trust, you’ll lose visitors. 
• If your website goes against best practices, you’ll likely lose visitors. 

And each visitor lost is an opportunity lost to the competition. 

Challenge the look and feel of your website 

First impressions matter. 

A website that looks outdated can instantly undermine credibility. Fresh, modern visuals and consistent branding signal professionalism and trust, while poor design or dated aesthetics can make even the best product or service feel less reliable. 

Review your mobile-friendliness 

The fact is that your target audience will likely cross path with you for the first time on a mobile device.  

Neglect that, and you’ll be indirectly feeding your competitors’ pipelines. 

With the majority of traffic now coming from mobile devices, a site that isn’t mobile responsive creates a frustrating user experience. Long PDF downloads or hard-to-navigate content on smaller screens are particularly harmful. Optimizing for mobile ensures accessibility, engagement, and higher chances of conversion. 

Check your page speed performance 

We (consumers) don’t like waiting. 

What’s more, a slow-loading website won't only frustrate users but also significantly impact your search engine rankings. Google rewards websites that perform well on Core Web Vitals, meaning fast, responsive, and stable sites benefit from both better visibility and improved conversion potential. 

Are you able to update your website on your own? 

Highly dependent teams ≠ successful teams. 

Agility is key in digital marketing. If your team cannot quickly publish, test, and iterate content without relying on developers, you’ll waste time and resources. Meanwhile, more agile competitors will outpace you. 

This is why you need a CMS (content management system) that empowers your marketing team, accelerates campaigns and keeps your website aligned with fast-changing market dynamics. 

Review your technical SEO performance 

You need solid foundations. 

To put it simply, ‘behind-the-scenes elements’ like metadata, headings, internal linking, and structured content play a major role in discoverability. 

Poor technical SEO can prevent search engines from properly indexing your site, lowering your visibility.  

And so, strong foundations ensure that the great content you produce can actually be found by the right audience. 

How integrated is your website with the rest of your martech ecosystem? 

Your website should can not operate as a standalone asset; it needs to be tightly connected to the rest of your marketing technology stack to function as a true growth engine.  

Without these integrations, you risk turning your site into a static brochure rather than a dynamic platform that fuels lead generation, customer insights, and scalable growth. 

Here are concrete signs you need a revamp. 

Review the integration of your website in your tech stack 

A functioning B2B website is growth engine. 

If yours doesn’t plug into CRM, automation, or analytics properly, you’re missing opportunities. 

A website that doesn’t sync with tools like your CRM, marketing automation, or analytics platforms is essentially flying blind. Integrations ensure you can capture visitor data, nurture leads, and track performance in real time, turning visitors into qualified opportunities. 

Review your ability to (truly) run experiments 

If A/B testing, personalization, or conversion tracking are hard or impossible to run, your site is holding you back. 

Here again, experience shows that sustainable growth comes from testing and optimizing. Without the ability to run experiments or personalize user journeys, you’re stuck making guesses instead of data-driven improvements. A website that enables easy testing empowers marketers to continuously refine performance and boost results. 

Polish your main growth engine 

Your website is more than just a digital storefront; it’s the growth engine for your business. 

If it feels outdated, underperforms on speed, struggles with mobile responsiveness, or isn’t aligned with your strategy, you risk losing valuable opportunities to competitors. 

On the other hand, regularly reviewing its design, content, technical setup, and integration with your tech stack, will help you ensure it remains a powerful tool for attracting, engaging, and converting the right audience. 

And if you need help with that, let us know!