When you own a company, there would be a stage where you need to upgrade the technology you have been using or providing. There could be two main reasons to that, either the technology you’re using is no longer meeting your needs or the technology you’re using does not make any conversions for you.
An upgrade might be a right choice but you’re tight on budget. In this case, it’s really hard to decide which step you should be taking. Which is why you need to figure out a few things. The first thing you need to know is to
Find out if it’s the right time to upgrade
Determine if it’s the technology or if it is just that your website or mobile application isn’t properly optimized to make conversions for you.
How would you know this?
Check your demographics. Find out your average traffic and also the results of your marketing.
If you have had a good number of visitors and no conversions, then you need to work on upgrading your website or mobile app.
If your website is not getting any traffic then you first need to build up traffic to your website, it takes a while for you’re marketing and SEO to generate some traffic and after the traffic is generated then only you would know if your website is making any conversions or not.
Below are some really important questions you need to find answers to when you are planning to upgrade.
Have you tried the potential with the current technology?
Without using your current mobile app or website to its potential you cannot decide if you need an upgrade or not, you need to use it to its potential and then judge by the results of it.
Does your business need a tech upgrade?
There are some businesses which purely need an online presence and that is how they grow and survive, but there are other businesses where you just need an online presence and nothing more than that, if you belong to the second category then you just don’t have to upgrade on to a new technology.
Do you have enough users to go for an upgrade?
As explained earlier it is important to know where you went wrong with your current technology, for which you need to have a decent amount of users because that could give you information on where you went wrong.
Is upgrading the best financial decision?
Well, upgrading could be exciting and it may seem to be the best solution for your business. But is it really a best possible solution when you’re financials do not support.
It may seem to be the best possible solution, but there are other much better alternatives, which you might’ve never tried.
Solutions which include:
- Search Engine Optimization or App Store Optimization.
- Content strategies like posting Blogs, answering Quora.
- Digital marketing.
If you think you could be doing better business by just getting on to a new platform, then you’re absolutely wrong. Without trying the above three methods you’re not giving a chance for your current technology to show its potential.
Who’s the best person to perform upgrades?
There are plenty of options out there, which could do the job for you; sometimes your local developer might be costing you more than the ones who are more than a thousand miles away.
There are different price ranges in different regions, for different types of technologies, which means you have a lot of choices, a whole lot of choice, which could confuse you and could disappoint you.
There are a few things you need to keep in mind before you determine who’s going to upgrade your website or a mobile app.
- Check the background, which includes client testimonials, previous projects and you could even try to talk to their clients.
- Ask for a quote and compare it with other companies who are of the same expertise and skill.
- See if the company has a project coordinator who could communicate between you and your team.
- Ask if they make wireframing for your mobile app or web development project. Learn more about wireframing here.
- Ask if they support your website or mobile app after the project, for regular updates and bug fixes.
So determining if you’re a developer isn’t really an easy task, you need to do a proper homework.
Should you replace or repair?
Repairing the website is a good option if it can cut down the cost drastically. If your repairs cost more than half of the upgrading charges then its always better to go for the new technology or platform and then take it forward with your marketing skills.
So as mentioned above you need to decide whether replacing the website is a great option or repairing is all you need.
Set your sights on the future
Finally, when you have made up your mind to upgrade, there are many things which could help you save your money. From choosing the right technology to choosing the right developer there are a lot of things which could bring a whole lot of difference in your bill.
There are a lot of technologies with a whole lot of different options offering a wide range of customization for your web application. Some come are open source which means for free but some come at a premium price and they do not disappoint you.
For example, WordPress is considered the best platform to have your website on, but if you are an eCommerce vendor there are better options than WordPress, like Shopify or Bigcommerce.
There are other platforms which do the same for different kinds of businesses. So you need to do research on which platform your business works more efficiently. When you choose a platform it needs to be going well with your requirements.
Look it’s not about which platform is cool and which one is more popular, if it does not fulfill your requirements then it’s of no use.
Also, you need to choose a platform which will help you on a long run, never look for a temporary solution. Temporary solutions may be easy on your pocket but sooner or later you might have to look for upgrading to the right platform.
Yes when it comes to technology, software trends change but not as fast as fashion trends change. If you observe the ergonomics of website buttons are almost the same as what we have witnessed last decade. But that doesn’t mean you would lean back and choose something which was like yesterday.
Since we are currently worried about trends in web applications here’s what’s going on currently.
- Your website needs to be optimized for smartphones and tablets. Optimize your website for edge-to-edge screened smartphones too.
- User experience is something which is taken very seriously nowadays, you need to make sure that a user does not get confused about how to navigate through your website.
- Make sure that your user can make easy transactions on your website.
- Content on your website must be top notch, high definition images and text must be fresh and audience with different disabilities need to be able to access your website.
- You need to make sure your content is Search Engine Optimized, which makes it rank high on a search engine.
- A website needs to load faster on all kinds of devices and under different conditions. Conditions involve devices with different capabilities and different network conditions because not all users have similar conditions in which you have created the website.
- Do not forget about a call to action buttons, use them effectively whenever and wherever you can, and remember not to irritate your visitors.
Conclusion
When you could achieve all this you’re all set to expect some good results on your website. these are the elements which are being followed in the current trends and for the future. Also making your website AMP’d is something you must look forward to. AMP is Accelerated Mobile Pages, it’s something which makes your website load faster on mobile devices and Google is supporting it. When the world’s most used search engine is supporting it, you have to be a part of it.