Stratos / Blog / Doing the maths

How many clients is an outdated website costing you?

You know your outgoings to the last coin. The revenue you didn't get, you don't — because it appears nowhere. This article is about estimating it anyway.

Category Doing the maths Written by Stratos

Illustration for the article about the cost of an outdated website.

An outdated website doesn't send an invoice. It doesn't beep, it doesn't stop, it doesn't draw attention to itself. Simply fewer enquiries arrive than could — and that difference shows up nowhere, because the client who didn't come leaves no trace.

There's no line in the accounts for "the one who almost wrote". It's still the biggest item.

The calculation

It takes four numbers, and you know all four better than anyone.

A — how many visitors the site gets per month;
B — how many of them get in touch;
C — what percentage of enquiries become clients;
D — what one client brings in on average within a year.

Your current monthly result is A × B × C × D. Now run the same sum with B doubled. The difference between the two numbers is what you don't receive each month.

This isn't a promise that enquiries will double. It's an estimate of what it would be worth if they did — and that's what tells you whether it's worth pursuing at all.

If you don't know the numbers

That's the more common case, and it's a finding in itself. If you don't know how many visitors you have and how many enquiries came from them, the first task isn't a new website, it's measurement. Without it, every improvement is a matter of faith.

The minimum worth seeing: where visitors come from, which page they leave on, and how many form submissions or calls the site produces.

How does this add up for you?You don't have to finish reading before you ask. Tell us your situation and you'll get a specific answer.

Let's talk about it

What makes a site "outdated"?

Not its age. A fast, well-organised site built seven years ago can outperform last year's site that wants to do everything at once. These are the real signs:

hard to read on a phone, or it scrolls sideways;
it takes several seconds to load;
the first screen doesn't say what you do and for whom;
there's no clear next step, or there are five at once;
the price list, opening hours or service list are out of date;
nothing can be changed without contacting somebody.

What improves a lot for very little?

A full rebuild isn't always the answer. These often produce the biggest change for the smallest outlay:

reducing image sizes — often that alone saves seconds;
one clear button on the first screen;
making the phone number tappable on mobile;
a dedicated page for the most important service;
current opening hours and contact details, identical everywhere.

Where we come inYou can work through the list above yourself, and if that's enough, it's enough. If it turns out the structure is the problem, that's worth a conversation — but we start with measurement, not with a proposal.