2024 Website Capabilities Benchmarks

Can you believe that in the late nineties, most businesses did NOT have a website?  Over the last two decades not only have the ways in which people find and engage with businesses completely transformed, becoming centered around a website, the way that your website impacts your results continues to evolve as well. 

Considering that it only takes 55 milliseconds for a website visitor to form an opinion about your business, any website issues could negatively impact your business.

What Are Common Website Challenges?

Overall, staffing presents the greatest gap for most companies with regard to website capabilities, regardless of size.  Lack of staff to update and manage website applications, lack of staff to update design or content, and so on are common themes.  Following this are challenges related to core website technology, such as account tracking, SEO and security-related facets, among others. 

How Can You Most Easily Avoid & Solve Website Issues?

Website capabilities gap can have a measurable impact on your operations, and as such should be addressed as quickly as possible.  If you can’t afford in-house resources, find an external website partner, which will likely be a marketing agency.  Smaller agencies (with less than 100 employees) or those specializing in helping businesses of all sizes, will likely be the best partner for most businesses.

• Beware of one-man-bands: Though independent contractors can be helpful for quick fixes, our research shows that one-man-bands have a risk of leaving customers high-and-dry during critical issues or they move on to other opportunities, potentially leaving you in lurk.  We recommend you look for a small to mid-sized agency with lots of experience in website design, development and management (ask for references).  There are quite a few in North America – find one with which you can vibe!

• Corporations Should Find Partner Agencies: Even though you have an exceptional in-house, working with one or more external agencies can ensure you got a fresh burst of ideas (and creative concepts).  This will help optimize website-related demand generations and operations.

• Seek a Partner That Does More Than Websites: There are a ton of options when it comes to hiring individuals or companies that can help you with website or marketing-related needs.  We recommend you find ones that have a broad array of skills because our research shows that the future of marketing will require expertise across the gamut of marketing technologies, like AI, available (and coming).

What Are Top Website Capabilities?

Though most websites are a good reflection of their companies, our research also shows that just under half of those surveyed do NOT keep the information on their website up to date annually.  This cross-functional task can be challenging regardless of business size and often can benefit from the periodic help of an outside expert.  Other interesting findings are shown below.

What Are The Most Important Website-related Activities in 2024?

In line with a focus on improving data security, most of those survey said that improving website security is a key activity – and most of these expect to turn to an outside expert to help.  Other important website- related activities that you may want to prioritize in the near-term are related to analytics (and tracking) content management and lead quality.

Is It Time To Speak With A Website Expert?

The research suggests that your website is more important (and potentially vulnerable) than you may realize.  As such, getting some fresh insight from a seasoned expert could go a long way.  Use our free Expert Connect service to be matched with a website expert that is just right for your business size and needs, plus earn a reward when you finish your live conversation over the phone.