Spring is often associated with a fresh, new, clean start and a renewed sense of life. For many, this getting rid of the old and in with the new takes on the form of spring cleaning. While you may be thinking about the house, why not think of refreshing and reviving your business’ website? After all, your website is your business’ presence online and is the first interaction customers have with your company.
Does your website accurately display your company’s character, personality and culture? Is it current and up to date?
Like your home, you may acquire a different taste in décor and choose to go beyond cleaning to overhauling a room’s look. Spring is a great time to do the same for your business website.
There are some things to consider when spring cleaning your website:
Update Content and Information
Does the content of your website still embody your company’s personality and mission? Is your last blog post or “news” item from a year or two ago? Is the company contact information and personnel biographies current?
Nothing is more boring or unprofessional looking as a website that is full of outdated, incorrect information. Additionally, consider adding regular blog posts so your site. This can give your site a constant stream of fresh content that piques the interest of customers and catches the attention of search engines.
For e-commerce websites with online ordering and a catalogue of products, make sure the description for each product is correct and updated. Be sure to display current inventory, not discontinued items.
Test Out the Website’s Usability
Is your website easy to navigate and do all the internal links work? If not, site visitors will be quick to leave. It is also a good idea to check if your website is compatible on different devices such as phones and tablets. Also, look through all the content for grammar, spelling, punctuation errors and industry jargon. The tone and style of the content should be consistent on each webpage and should reflect the image and personality of the brand.
A website that looks nice and is easy to use increases the time visitors spend on the website, whereby increasing their chance of converting.
Give it a Fresh Look
Like your personal home décor preferences, your business will undergo a brand refresh to update and freshen its look to match its evolving personality. The frequency of this change can also be attributed to the preferences of a business’ targeted customers and the industry a business is in.
When undergoing a brand or website redesign, it’s a good idea to work with a professional website designer as they know their way around the colors and font styles and sizes and their emotional and psychological effects. He or she will know which complimentary colors should be incorporated as well as the appropriate website design and layout for the look and feel of one’s brand and the personality it wants its website visitors to experience.
In addition to changing up the layout, typography and color scheme, also consider adding new photos (that are optimized) along with fresh content. Adding an events calendar and current news can also revive the appearance of a bland website.
Make Sure the Links Work
Outdated or broken links can can lower your business’ credible, trustworthy, professional appearance. If the internal and external links point to pages that are either outdated or no longer exist, your page’s SEO and online visibility can suffer. One should check out each link on their website frequently and regularly.
Make Sure Third Party Website Apps and Extensions Work
Are your company’s social media and RSS feeds properly linked and connected to your website? Are third party on-page analytics trackers up and running? Is the spam filter on your blog post comments turned on or should you disallow all commenting on old blog posts to avoid spam? If your business has an app, does it work properly? If the third party apps and extensions installed on your website fail to work properly, you miss out on taking the biggest online advantage you have, making your content shareable, and valuable analytics information about your website users and their behavior and interaction with your website. Without these analytics data, it is hard to assess the areas of improvement.
Evaluate and Clarify Your Site’s Call-to-Actions
Are the calls to action (CTA) of each page of your website obvious and clear? If it isn’t noticeable or clear, website visitors won’t know what action to take which can lead to missed conversions, purchases and e-newsletter subscriptions. When people come to your site, they not only want to quickly find the information they are looking for, but they also want to be told what to do with the information you provide.
Renew or Re-evaluate the Domain Name and Web Hosting Plan
It’s always a good idea to look at your website hosting plan each year as many plans require annual renewal. Did the hosting provider take care of any or all the glitches of your website? Did they provide adequate website protection? Were they responsive and easy to work with? Did prices go up or do you feel like you’re overpaying for service? Your website can’t function without a hosting provider. You need to be sure the one you choose is skilled, experienced, trustworthy, responsive and are comfortable to work with.
Similarly, yearly evaluation of your website’s domain is also a good idea. Does it clearly communicate the company’s name and targeted keywords? Is it catchy, concise and memorable? If you’re overhauling a company re-brand, will the current domain name fit the new brand identity and personality?
Spring is a great time to clean up your website and bring new life into your business. This entails ensuring that your website functions correctly, that it is easy to navigate and that the content is accurate and current. Besides being easy to use and fun to interact with, one’s website may be in need of redesign and a new look.
Whether you’re undergoing a major re-branding or simply want to make a few minor tweaks and improvements, the professionals at SEO.com can help. We are a full-service digital marketing company with professional developers, website designers, content and SEO specialists and PPC professionals. Contact us today to learn more about we can help you in your website spring cleaning.
I really love this as a web developer. Not enough businesses or websites are updated regularly enough. I always tell my clients to update their websites or have me update it for them on a regular basis. Websites need to stay on the cutting edge of technology, look, feel and always usability. When this is done properly and regularly then websites will rank higher and drive more traffic.
Hi, yes, many business owners don’t understand the importance of regularly updating their websites.By doing so, their websites will not only look and function well, but they can also possibly improve or maintain good rankings as their websites will be current with Google’s algorithm updates.
This sounds amazing. Thanks for sharing, i’ll try these tips for my website.
Hi Muskaan, glad you liked the post and found it useful. Good luck with your website.
Hello Sarah,
Thanks for this new and one of it’s kind Guide 🙂 You Mentioned A new and very important point all websites owners should follow to make their sites always Compatible with today’s technology and updates. I always do my best to update my site and I will follow your guide as you have mentioned all the things I should Keep in my mind when updating my site. Thanks a again!
Hi John, glad you enjoyed the guide and have found it useful. It’s essential to always update one’s website regularly as thinks can break and search algorithms change. That’s good you’re constantly updating your website.
any free tool to check dead links ?
Hi, there are many free dead link checking tools out there. We use Screaming Frog which offers a free and paid version. The free version allows you to check up to 500 links.
If you use chrome then “check my links” is a good one or SEOminion also has a dead link feature that works efficiently.
thanks for sharing. but it seem’s google really changed the algorithm. any ideas for latest changes on google?
Hi, yes, Google did roll out an algorithm change the early-mid part of March called the Core Algorithm Update. It isn’t completely clear as to the specific changes it brought. Some websites in certain markets saw a big drop while others in other industries saw a boost in rankings. Some think the latest update is a more inclusive version of the Medic Update from last year. Great, high-quality content that follow Google’s E-A-T guidelines is the best way to not be negatively affected by the latest update.
thanks for sharing tips and tricks. I have gain lots of points.
Hi Rajesh, glad the article was helpful and informative.
Call to action is very difficult
Hi Ehsaider, while anyone can tack on a short sentence at the end of a blog post or webpage content, it can be difficult to come up with the right content to get people to take action. The placement, tone, and wording are important. The reputation of the company or brand also plays a big role in people taking the call to action seriously.
Yes, You are right Google just love fresh content, thanks for sharing
Thanks Eric. Glad you enjoyed the content.
Very helpful. I do agree broken links are a critical issue. That drops trustworthy significantly. Thank you for sharing.
Hi Sang, glad you liked the post and found it helpful. Yes, it is important to fix any and all broken links as this makes a website appear less reputable to web users and search engines.
I think really the Website Usability is comprised of learnability, memorability, efficiency, satisfaction and errors. Thanks for sharing tips.
Best Regards
Karin R.
Thanks Karin. Glad you liked the post and thanks for the input.
I agree with the author – regular updates allow you to always be ahead.
Moreover, there is even a focus only on regularly updating the content on the website – you will bypass almost all of your competitors.
Would you believe that I undertook a spring cleaning of my website before seeing your article? It just occurred to me to give it a facelift and check if everything is still intact. Well, it so happened that there were a lot of on-page errors that I was not aware of. What it also does is motivate me to start putting in more work getting people to the website to see how the new look will convert. All in all, I can attest to your article personally, that a spring clean of our website is an excellent idea.
Broken links are so easy to check with the technology we have available, it should be something we do regularly as changes are made
Hi Sarah,
Thanks for the useful article. Constantly maintaining or updating your website will help you to spot hidden issues. Updating your blog with current trends is really effective to draw traffic to your site, because if your blog remains static or outdated for a period of time, you lose the interest of your visitors.
Again, thank for the article! 🙂
I think the re-evaluation of the hosting plan is a great tip. There are lots of offers around now and using a CDN to host your website is also something that I’m looking to do.
Can you share any tool for technical Audit?
YES! Definitely need to check broken links… as well as optimize your website for speed, and refresh blog content that needs a ranking boost 🙂 I use PageSpeed Insights as wells as SEOQuake plugin for these things!
Great tips, and I agree website usability is as important as ever and it helps with your website’s bounce rate I guess. Do you have any tips for decreasing bounce rates?
Very informative. I believe it’s a good practice to monitor your links and disavow those that would hurt your website. Thanks for this article.
Hi Sarah,
I really enjoyed the the article you have written.
I always find website’s with broken links and it’s SO ANNOYING!!! :@:@:@
All website’s could do with a ‘spring, summer, winter AND autumn clean’ to ensure they are in the best shape possible for both the user and the search engine’s.
If you neglect your website for a long time, the work will be so much harder and more time consuming when you eventually decide to do something about it!
Keep up the good work!
Dave
Can you share any tool for technical Audit?
How often do you suggest one should do this?