Web Maintentance
Estimated Read Time: 3-4 minutes
Don’t let your website sit and grow dusty like those out of date brochures sitting at the back of the storage closet. One of the benefits of a website is how easy it is to modify the content. Plus, an updated website can reflect positively on your organization, and be helpful to website visitors.
Why should I update my website?
Updating your website isn’t hard, but can easily get pushed to the bottom of the to-do list. However, putting in the effort can benefit you and your website visitors. An up-to-date website can:
Keep customers and potential customers informed and armed with accurate information
Show you care about the details
Show you’re active and responsive
Give visitors confidence that communications submitted via your website will be received and acted on
Plus, keeping your website content current can impact your position in the search results. Google’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide indicates that “compelling and useful content” which they characterize as “up-to-date” among other things, “will likely influence your website’s presence in search results more than any of the other suggestions in this guide”.
What should you update on your website?
If your website has been sitting for a while, even if you don’t have time to do a full content audit and update, you can start with checking the basics. First, ensure your contact information and contact process up to date. You don’t want potential customers going to an old location or calling a number that isn’t in service. Also make sure that contact forms are connected to the right email addresses, and any obsolete emails or contact information is removed from the website. If a potential customer wants to contact you, you don’t want to put any roadblocks in their way.
After the basics, you can assess what to update next based on helpfulness for website users. First, make sure all the information on your pages is up-to-date. Maybe start with the homepage or page that sees the most web traffic. Accurate information will help website visitors with accurate expectations for services, processes, and experiences with your organization. Secondly, think about what is most helpful for users, or perhaps what they most want to know. Customer feedback can be helpful here. Are there questions that customers are frequently asking that could be answered on your website?
You can also use your website analytics to assess what might need updating. What web pages are visitors visiting and how long are they spending there? Answering questions like these can point you to content gaps, indicating where you might flesh out your content. You can also assess the importance of existing content by looking at view duration and button clicks - which you can use to inform how you structure navigation, layout and links on your website.
Finally, it’s a good idea to ensure that your overall design continues to be on brand and that the visual aesthetic and layout are effective. Look for elements that don’t align with your brand personality, whether it be fonts, colours, write-ups that don’t match your brand voice, photos that in the wrong style, etc, and modify them to be on-brand. Assess the hierarchy of elements on the page in terms of importance and most used and change if necessary. Check what stands out on different pages or sections and ask yourself if these are what you want to be highlighted. Being strategic about where you place elements and what you highlight can help users find important information quickly, and guide them through processes like browsing products, making purchase decisions, or connecting with you.
Conclusion
In conclusion, an up-to-date website is an important communications and marketing tool. Updating your website arms website visitors with accurate information for decision making. An up-to-date website communicates to visitors that you’re paying attention… that you’re open for business and ready to deliver. Ensuring your website is updated regularly can make it a truly useful tool for your business or organization. So, maybe the next time you’re looking at your to-do list, consider moving website updates bit further up on the list.