B2Bs: This is Scary-Don’t Let this Happen to you!
This is scary stuff, folks. Take this as a cautionary tale…
Just like your car, your home, your personal health, or your garden, a website must be maintained. Skip changing the oil? The engine will seize up. Neglect your house? Paint peels, the HVAC breaks, and the roof leaks. Ignore routine health check-ups, don’t exercise, and eat poorly? Risk illness and ill-health. You get the picture…
Neglecting your website can lead to a crash. We just saw it happen and it was terrifying!
We were hired for a website redesign project for a new client. They operate a B2B in the manufacturing space. Most of their business comes from referrals, relationships, and repeat customers, so the website had not been actively maintained. When they began to review the old site to determine the way forward, they learned that THE SITE WAS DOWN!
After their IT team ran some diagnostics and looked into the back end with their original web developer (who was RETIRED, but kindly took their call) we learned that the old template had simply broken down. The template had not been updated, the content had not been refreshed, and as a result the entire site fell apart.
The IT folks attempted to restore the site. They managed to get the home page up and it appeared to be fine…until we tried to access the secondary pages for a content audit. The minute we left the homepage, we discovered that the rest of the site was still down. The technicians are still working to restore the old site so we have something to work from—but it is unclear whether they will be able to do so and we may well be starting from scratch.
So that’s the bad news. The good news is that the problem is completely preventable. Building a new website with updated technology will ensure that this type of outage does not occur—provided that the site is maintained and updated regularly.
We know that in the past, updating a website was complicated, time consuming and expensive—so people tended to avoid it. Often minor changes meant hiring (or re-hiring) your developer, paying an hourly fee, going back and forth with the inevitable delays and glitches. This prevented many companies, especially B2Bs, from using their websites to their fullest potential—or in the case of our client, ignoring them until they fell apart. Well, friends, those days are over.
The Squarespace website we are developing for them will offer a clean, fresh look, and most importantly, will be built using the latest technology. This means that the site will be secure, have a user-friendly content management system, and can be used as a marketing and lead generation tool. A new website also performs better—pages load more quickly, plug-ins and buttons respond faster, which may make visitors want to stick around longer. When companies put their best foot forward with a professional, well-designed website, they:
· Boost SEO
· Convey their value proposition
· Communicate regularly with existing customers
· Engage with new and potential customers
· Improve digital security
New sites also enable streamline Social Media Integration, which has rapidly become an essential part of most business’ marketing strategy.
No one wants the worst-case scenario described above—ABR Creative can help your B2B develop a website that tells your story, connects with customers, and puts your best foot forward.
It’s not that scary!
