Can visitors determine what your business does within 5 seconds of landing on your website? Can they easily navigate to your Contact page? Is the layout of your packages or pricing easy to understand?

If you’re shaking your head ‘no’ at the screen right now, it’s time to take a hard look at your website optimisation (or lack thereof).

Why bother? Gone are the days when it was enough to simply own a website. Users are far pickier than ever before, what with your competitors vying for their attention every single day. If your website is not up to date with the latest design, tech, and SEO trends, your business is going to be undiscoverable online.

Here are tips on updating your website:

1. Thoroughly audit your website

The first thing you should check, page by page, is if everything is updated and working. Are all of your plugins functioning properly? Do you have broken links? Are all your images pulling through? Sorting out these issues first will make updating the rest of your website a breeze. Here’s what you need to look out for:

Outdated themes and plugins
404s and broken links
Broken features
Outdated keywords
Incorrect contact information (business email addresses, office numbers, etc)
Outdated design
Formatting problems

It sounds like a lot, but fixing these problems will ensure a better user experience (which is vitally important) as well as improved SEO.

2. Optimise for mobile and responsiveness

It is imperative that you have a responsive website. What does this mean? Basically, your website is optimised to be viewed on any device: desktop, tablet, and mobile – especially mobile. Users are searching for goods and services on their cell phones, so it is important that you get into a “mobile first” frame of mind when updating your website.

It’s unsurprising to hear that 80% of internet users use a smartphone. Furthermore, 61% of users won’t return to a mobile site they had difficulty accessing. 40% of those users then visit a competitor’s site. Get cracking!

3. Usability testing

How user-friendly is your website? An effective way of making sure your website is up to standard is by getting in a fresh pair of eyes to navigate your website. Ask them to provide honest feedback – here are some questions you can ask them:

Did they understand what product/service your business provides by looking at the homepage?
Could they navigate easily to the other webpages?
Did they at any point feel lost or confused?
What do they think about the layout/theme/design?

4. Analytics

If you’re not already tracking your site’s analytics, now is the time to do so!

With this, you can discover which of your pages are converting, which have a high bounce rate, and which have high or low levels of engagement. Once you know where your issues are, you can begin to fix them. As G.I Joe puts it, “knowing is half the battle”!

5. Content. Content. Content.

A highly beneficial way to update your website is by adding new content, as well as updating existing content. Even if your website is rather static, adding relevant, high-quality content will improve your search rankings and keep users coming back for more.

So, what kind of content? Start a blog if you don’t already have one, and if you do, you should be adding new articles at least once a month. Add informative infographics and video where relevant, and update existing content, such as your Contact and FAQ pages.

There you have it! These are just a few, yet highly effective steps you can take to make sure that your website is updated and up to scratch.

Posted in Website

Tips on Updating Your Website