Is my website too outdated, and is it costing me jobs?
A home service website isn't outdated because of its age, it's outdated when it stops getting the phone to ring. The real signs: it's clumsy on a phone, it's slow to load, there's no tap-to-call button, or it doesn't show recent work and reviews. If a homeowner scrolling on their phone can't tell what you do and call you in a few seconds, that site is costing you jobs right now, no matter how new it is.
By Jacob Graber, founder of Blessed Arc Media · Updated
Does website age actually matter?
Website age by itself tells you almost nothing about whether it's losing you jobs. Most advice you'll find defaults to a calendar rule, redesign every 2 to 3 years, because it's easy to say and impossible to argue with. But it's not tied to anything real. I've seen 6 year old sites that still load fast, still work fine on a phone, and still bring in calls every week. I've also seen sites built last year that are already costing their owner leads because nobody checked how it actually performs for a stranger on a phone. What actually matters is whether the site still does its one job, which is turning a person with a problem into a phone call. If it's doing that, leave it alone. If it's not, the fix isn't how old it is, the fix is figuring out which specific thing is broken.
What are the signs your website is actually losing you customers?
The signs are pretty simple, and none of them have to do with how nice the site looks. Each one you can check yourself in a couple minutes, right on your phone, no developer needed.
What matters is whether someone standing over a leaking pipe or a dead A/C can act on your site fast enough before they call the next name on the list.
- It breaks or is clumsy to use on a phone, buttons too small to tap, text that overlaps, a form that won't submit.
- It's slow to load over cell data. That's a separate check worth doing on its own.
- There's no tap-to-call button, so someone has to copy the number instead of tapping it.
- It doesn't show recent work or reviews.
- People mention it looks old. That's not vanity, that's a real customer telling you they hesitated before calling.
How do you actually check your own site?
The quickest check is a stranger test: open your site on your phone, on cell data, and see how fast you could find your own phone number and call it. If that takes more than a few seconds, you've got your answer.
Usually it's one specific thing behind it, the mobile layout, the load time, or a missing tap-to-call button. When patching won't fix it, that's when a full rebuild focused on mobile speed and tap-to-call makes sense, which is the web design work we do for home service businesses.
Not sure if your site is actually the problem?
We'll look at it and give you a straight answer, even if the answer is it's fine.
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