5 free tips to refresh your website

Why is it important to update your website?

For many of us, refreshing our website is always one project which is on the to do list but put on the back burner. What you may not realise, is that updating your website will have huge benefits. And the good news is providing you have access to your site, and it is built in a platform that allows you to update it easily, it needn't cost you any money.

It is so important to update your website. Research indicates that 57% of online users won't recommend a business with a poorly designed website and 75% of consumers admit to making judgements about a company's credibility based on their website.

Your website is your ultimate shop window. And it represents your brand. So, you need to continually invest in it, just like you would with other types of your marketing and social media.

Not only will updating your website help with your SEO, but you also need to check your content and offering are still relevant. Some simple updates will breathe a new lease of life into your website and will have a huge number of benefits.

When was the last time you read every page of your website? I guarantee when you start reading it, there will be so many things you spot that can be updated. And no doubt your business has changed and you'll have many achievements to talk about. Don't shy away and hide these things. You need to shout about them. This could be anything from client wins and awards and accreditations.

It is also a chance to ensure your brand is represented in the right away. As mentioned every business naturally evolves, and so does your brand. Your visual style is likely to change over a period of time, as well as your tone of voice. There could be some simple things you can do from changing some of the language and vocabulary, to changing the colour scheme.

Here is a checklist of 5 things to overhaul:

1. Update your images

With so many high quality free image libraries available, there are no excuses for not refreshing your imagery.

Try and select photographs which are in keeping with your brand and use the same visual style so they look like they all belong together. This could be in terms of colours, the composition or the styling.

2. Add or update your blog

A blog on your website will not only help with your SEO, but it should drive traffic to your website. Providing the content is relevant and well written, it can help you come across as an expert in your field. Plus, it is a way to provide added value to your customers in the form of advice and free tips.

Once you've built up a large number of blogs, you'll need to rethink about categorising them to make them more 'searchable'. You can also revisit old blogs and update them. You may have heard the term 'evergreen content'. This refers to content which doesn't have a shelf life and can be repurposed. It is a good idea to invest in creating evergreen content which you'll be able to reuse a few times.

3. Update your ‘about us’ and ‘products and services’

It is well worth updating your main sections a few times a year. These are the sections that easily become out of date and probably are the most visited. You can see what are the most popular pages from looking at your Google Analytics.

How old is the picture of you or the team? Try and ensure it is current and reflects your business in the right way. It if isn't take a new picture at home, but ensure you use a neutral background and you're wearing colours which are complimentary to your brand colours.

The products and services section is one of the most important sections on your website. Ensure you are putting more of a spotlight on your hero products and remove any products or services which are not relevant or popular.

4. Improve the call to actions

Call to actions are a critical part of the customer journey and buying process. Ensure you have enough call to actions on your website and they are prominent and appear in the right place. Try and make these as specific as possible. For example 'contact us' is quite vague. Would you rather people phone you or do you want them to sign up to a newsletter. Go back to what your objectives are.

If you don't have any call to actions throughout your site, then start to introduce them. You could also test different call to actions, and see what works best. Remember providing you've set up Google Analytics, you can track user behaviour on your site.

5. Add customer reviews

We all know how hard and sacred a glowing review is from a customer. So make sure you use it on your website and feature a good range of reviews.

Customer reviews should be used across the user journey to help reinforce your brand. They can also help plug 'low content' pages to help with your SEO.

All systems go

Updating your website is great use of your time and will have considerable benefits. It is just one of those things that many of us don't have the time to do when we're in the office and rushing around in meetings.

It will be a big weight off your mind once you've done it. It is recommended you rebuild your site every 3 to 4 years.

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