It's fair to say that websites are now the primary channel via which businesses communicate with their clients. Do not risk losing business by not knowing how to update your website.
Maybe you think that once your website is ready, clients will come flooding in.
And that you won't have to do anything more to keep them coming back.
Just as you wouldn't construct an office and then forget about it, your company can't afford to develop a website and then walk away.
Simply creating a website and leaving it unattended serves no purpose. There are periodic maintenance tasks that every website owner and developer should do.
Why is it important to update a website?
Website redesigns should be done every two to three years, whereas website updates should occur more often. Most companies only seek modification and updates when it is absolutely necessary. An example would be when a website receives a Google penalty.
Updating your website is important for numerous reasons. Here are some significant reasons to improve your website:
Improve Search Engine rankings
To rank well on Google, search engines seek new, relevant material. Search engines see frequent updates as an indication that your website is active and has fresh content for visitors to explore.
Raise performance and safety standards
Your website remains safe and operational with regular upgrades. For optimal website security, it is vital to regularly update the software, plugins, and themes.
Gain brand recognition
A higher frequency of content updates on your website increases the likelihood that people will share it on social media and link to it in email campaigns. It's safe to say that your brand's immediate and future success will be heavily influenced by the quality of your content.
Reduce maintenance expenses
To keep website maintenance expenses down in the long run, it's a good idea to update your website often. If you are neglecting updates, your website might make it more difficult to operate and end up costing you more money in the long run.
Provide a better experience for visitors
Making your site more user-friendly is the main goal of each website upgrade. Websites that are interesting, modern, and easy to navigate encourage repeat visits from the user. Making modifications to your website's design, content, and functionality may help you improve the user experience and overall engagement.
Best tips on how to update your website
A successful website has both useful content and an amazing user experience, ensuring that it goes above and beyond to impress everyone who sees it. Over time, however, text and photos become stale and out of date and people stop coming to it. Here are six tips to keep your website fresh.
1. Review your current website
Once you plan to update your website, the initial phase should go into reviewing your website’s technical background, design and content. This will provide a basic summary of everything on your website.
An abundance of technical issues on your website increases the chances that its features may malfunction. That might be very annoying for your viewers and have a bad effect on your website's performance. While reviewing the website, make note of any issues like these and get them fixed as you go.
You can gain a lot of visitors with little update from time to time. Hence, keep editing the content on your web pages to ensure that it's up-to-date.
2. Analyse your website's traffic data
Take a look at how well your website performs in general, including how long it takes for pages to load, how quickly it responds, and how easy it is for users to navigate. Find out what sites people are most interested in, how often they visit, and how engaged they are with your content by using analytics tools like Google Analytics and Kissmetrics. By analyzing your website’s traffic data, you can better identify potential points of updating your site.
Google Search Console is a great choice if you're seeking a free and easy to use analyzing option. It shows you how Google sees and evaluates your website. You can see the site's ranking for target keywords in the "Performance” section. It gives information like the user's location, the device they used, and the amount of visits from each keyword.
3. Review and analyze competitors' websites
If you're considering an update to your website, checking your competitor’s website will guide you in the right way. It's crucial to set aside some time to see how your competitor’s site is performing and why.
For this, you'll need to:
Take a close look at their sites
Do some research
Make changes to your own website
What to find on your competitor’s website?
Firstly, decide what you want to know before you unleash the floodgates of data. It is important to begin your research with a clear objective in mind.
Is boosting your website's visibility your goal?
Are you making a better plan for using social media?
Do you want to see the similarities and differences between product or service descriptions?
Here's how to get started with analyzing competitors’ websites:
Make a list of websites that are competitive with yours (i.e. similar sized business and type of customers).
You can also use the traditional methods of searching on Google. Simply check which websites come up when you enter some of your top keywords.
Put the URLs of your top competitors’ sites on free competitor research tools to see what you can find out about them. Paid tools like SEMRush can show you how your site compares to other similar websites.
Keeping up with the competitors will provide you with the information you need to adapt your website for even better performance. Look for gaps in their websites that your website can fill.
4. Revamp your content
There's more to a website than simply page text. You should attempt to include more varied sorts of material such as:
Your website's content is the reason people visit it in the first place. Of course, it's important to have a well-designed website with a smooth user interface, but it won't be enough if the content isn't up to date.
One of the best ways to bring more people to a website is to start a blog and maintain it consistently.
Blogs are a great way to connect with your audience and provide valuable information without charging a dime, regardless of what your business offers. People like it when the content you share is both interesting and informative.
Furthermore, blogs are an excellent tool for improving your search rankings by using keyword emphasis.
Even experienced website designers might easily overlook hosting upgrades. When it comes to updating and maintaining a website, one hosting plan does not fit all. This implies that not all websites will function well on the same hosting platform.
In addition, the hosting plan that worked last year, may no longer suit the client this year.
Updating a website's plugins and themes on a regular basis might be challenging, but there are ways to eliminate this chore from your schedule.
One option is to use a web hosting provider that automatically updates WordPress sites as part of their standard service for free.
One other important factor to keep in mind while updating a site is speed.
You can evaluate your web page loading times using Google Page Speed, Internet Explorer's Page test, and so on. If you think your website is responding slowly, take preventative measures by optimizing memory-hogging elements and investing in a solid hosting server that offers reliable uptime.
6. Improve your SEO (search engine optimization)
If you don’t attend to your website frequently, your search engine rankings can drop. In fact, Google may consider your site dead in the search engine ranks if you don't regularly publish new material.
Optimizing your site for search engines can help more people locate it.
To ensure a steady stream of visitors to your site, SEO is a crucial step. You can learn how to use Yoast to optimize a WordPress website in this post.
It's a good idea to make it a habit to look for and delete any potentially bothersome links that you come across.
Don't forget that broken links can also hurt your website's search engine rankings!
In order to automate the process of finding and fixing broken links, there are link-checking tools available online. WordPress sites often use plugins for link monitoring that send the site owner an email when broken links are discovered.
8. Perform simple A/B testing
It is essential to do A/B testing if you want to make beneficial changes in your website. With A/B testing, you essentially create two versions on your website. It is important to note that between both websites, there should be only one type of variable. Once you've created these, you will run a test on both versions, collecting data points like traffic, click-through and engagement.
By comparing two different implementations, you can identify the version with the better performance.
The names "A" and "B" suggest that there are two versions. Determining their effectiveness requires the establishment of clear and objective criteria.
Here’s how you can go about A/B testing:
Consumer Opinions and Feedback: Gather and compare the ratings and comments left by users for each version.
Using the 'Conversion Rate' of each version, compare the proportion of site visitors who end up making a purchase.
Examine the metrics once the test has run for the allotted time. Put into action the version that makes your website work the best.
9. Maintain frequent backups of your site
About 50% of all users who don't do regular backups believe that it’s not necessary. Now, imagine your website getting hit with ransomware and you are left with no data.
Losing all of your hard work is the worst possible scenario.
For this reason, you must regularly back up your website(s). In the absence of this precaution, data loss is possible.
To get rid of manual backups, it is recommended to go for a modern hosting provider that offers automated daily backups as part of their hosting subscription.
If your hosting provider says they will back up your site for you, be sure they are really doing so regularly. If not, you may wish to locate a plugin to assist you in regularly backing up your site.
Editor’s note: Protect your website(s) from hackers and mishaps with GoDaddy’s set and forget backup tool. With GoDaddy, you’ll always have a daily backup to revert to if needed.
Why do website owners neglect to update their websites?
Neglecting regular updates simply means that you are neglecting your online presence.
Website owners often fail to maintain their websites because they either do not see the need to do so or lack the technical expertise on how to update a website.
The other reason could be their concerns regarding the expense and effort required to maintain a website. Luckily, with our advice, maintaining a website is:
Easy
Inexpensive
Straightforward
No matter how amazing your website is right now, trends change over time, links stop working unexpectedly. Make a note on your calendar to periodically go over your website for out-of-date photos, text, videos and broken links.
Conclusion: How to update a website
A website is an ongoing project. Keeping a website up-to-date and running smoothly takes time and effort, but it's essential for the site's long-term success.
The bright side is that there are approaches to simplifying this massive task.
Having a well-thought-out web plan in place may make website maintenance more manageable. If you follow these six tips to update your website and consistently use them, you are sure to get ahead of your competitors.
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