You all know that already, don’t you” However, new research from hibu, a digital services provider, uncovers a worrying lack of confidence in which SMEs regard their websites.
The research involved 1,000 SMEs with a company website. The findings revealed that a third think their current website looks outdated, while around a quarter look upon their websites in embarrassment. Some 24 per cent of SMEs thought their reputation was being damaged, and that the digital representation of their company was off-putting to potential customers.
Over two fifths of SMEs don’t know how to update their websites themselves, and perhaps here lies the problem. However, 18 per cent knowingly have outdated information on their site. To cheapen the costs of advertising goods, more than half acknowledged that they did not use a professional website designer or company to create their site.
The most concerning finding is that 67 per cent of SMEs are not confident that their site is compliant with privacy laws, an even larger percentage do not even know if their website adheres to the latest web standards.
Despite these issues, 66 per cent of SMEs do not plan to update their website in the next six years. Worryingly enough, more than half do not plan to do so within the next year.
