How future-proof is your website?

Web design is constantly advancing, but what are the core questions you need to ask about your new or existing website to make sure it's future-proof?

In marketing, it’s quite easy for us to always get fixated on the very latest trends and what’s shiny, what’s new and technology developments can be super exciting.

So, for you to consider ‘well, is my website future-proof?' you almost need to go back to basics and say:

• Does my website meet my current business objectives?
• Is it a good user experience for people when they come to the site?
• Is stuff easy to find?
• Is my website secure?
• Is the platform secure, is it constantly getting patched for security updates or have I had hacking incidents recently?

With data security, in particular, GDPR comes with a whole load of penalties if you lose personal data – and that’s got people sitting up in their chairs thinking about how they protect their data and what policies and procedures that they take on board.

7 key questions to consider...

Is your website optimised for SEO? If I search your site will it come first, second, third or will it be on page 14? If your site is not findable, it doesn’t matter how good it is, there’s almost no point in having it.

How’s the design look? Is it perfect for your brand, how does it look compared to your competitors' sites? Are they quite similar, what’s your differentiator as a company? Does your website show that?

Is the user experience good for you as a content editor? Does it take you hours and hours to update your website – or is it login and five minutes later you’ve got a new page? What is going to be time-efficient enough for you as a user within your company?

What about what your future needs might be? Where is the technology taking us as a society, does that play back onto your consumer needs and your business needs? In the last ten years, web development has come along leaps and bounds - the things you could do even just a couple of years ago have already evolved.

Is your website geo-aware? If I look at it on my mobile and I’m standing outside Big Ben, will it know that that’s where I am? Will it know to adapt to my requirements because of where I am – show me different things, perhaps prompt me for promotions that aren’t available if I’m in Scotland using the same website?

Would you like to be able to push notifications to your users if they’re coming to you from a mobile or are you quite happy with the flat experience that they get? They see the site, there’s the information on there, they digest it, and then they walk away.

Is your website linked to a CRM system? Are you taking advantage of being able to track users throughout the funnel and nurture them on their journey and create a sale at the end of that pipeline? Inbound marketing is all about being as helpful as possible for your customers - but that starts with your website and its ability to continue to nurture them through insight and data analytics. 

Away from the web, are you aware of what chatbots are doing for the big brands in terms of their self-service requirements and having automated agents talking to their customers? Many website platforms now have conversational marketing technology built in.

So these are all considerations that we think, as a digital agency building websites day-in, day-out, that you should be thinking about in your next website.

If all of this has got you thinking, and you're not sure if your current website is up-to-scratch, we can help! Request our free website grader audit, where we'll give you a personalised video report analysis on your website's security, SEO and content.