If there is any possible way that a visitor to your site could end up seeing something like this…

…and you are still paying someone for something connected to the “maintenance” of your website. FIRE THEM!
If you paid someone 10 years ago to create your website for you and you haven’t thought about it since, you need to. You are losing customers!

Seriously, it is 2015, not 2005! You do not get to tell people what technology they should be using to view your website. Traffic from mobile devices like phones and tablets is WAY up. In many cases half of the traffic to a website, or more, is coming from mobile devices, and almost none of them will run Flash!

Does anyone REALLY have this on their site anymore?

I do this thing were when I see a business sign on a building or vehicle while I’m out somewhere I’ll look up their website to take a look. I’m looking to see if I can help them with their website and maybe do some searches to see if they could use some help with their SEO or digital strategy. Sometimes I make a mental note and wait until I get to a computer, sometimes I’ll look them up right on my phone first. (I always check them out on my phone at some point, though, because mobile is so important.)

That is where the image above came from. That is the message that I got when I visited a local business’s website on my phone. Below this message, there is some copyright information, including the year 2005 and the firm that created this page for them. To be fair, often when you see something like this, the design firm is out of business. However, that is not the case in this instance, they are very much in business and, in fact, they are providing a wide range of online services and what I can assume are SaaS products for a very large niche.

The copyright dates have been updated on the desktop version of their website, so it appears that they are still contracting with this firm. I hope that this firm is providing them with great software that allows them to run their business more efficiently. What the firm is not doing is ensuring that they have a relevant and up-to-date website. It appears that the website is a “value add” that is being provided to the customer when they purchase the other software, along with being part of the firms searchable network of sites.

I have to wonder how much value is actually being added, though. If there is any way to remain part of the network while moving away from this outdated website, they should look into it. This website is not helping them, that is for sure.

What should be done?

Update the website as soon as possible!

Seriously, you are losing customers if no one can view your site from a mobile device.  Google has started taking mobile-readiness into account in their rankings, as well, so if your site has been showing up in search results it may not be for very long.  Aside from that, if this is what mobile visitors see, visitors on a desktop or laptop are probably seeing something that looks very outdated.