All aspects of design need to be audited and refreshed, but while a logo can stay relatively the same over time, your website should not. Website design has changed drastically in the few decades it has been around, and having a website that is too outdated can crash your engagement entirely.
Search engines penalize stagnant and outdated websites, users don’t trust them, and plugins and other systems used to run them are updated or even abandoned.
It doesn’t matter if the main way that your business brings in business is through your brick-and-mortar store. It doesn’t matter if it’s through your sales team. You can launch your business with a great website, so revamp it with these five steps:
- Take Notes from Your Competitors
You don’t want to outright copy your competition, but you will want to be aware of what they are doing and what customers or clients are expecting. Use these notes as a baseline to workshop how you can stand out and do it better.
- Audit Your Website
When it comes to improving your website, a good place to start is what is wrong. You can have your website professionally audited, or you can do it yourself. Look out for things like broken links, confusing pathways, outdated information, and so on. Create a list and start with these issues as a priority, and then work on improving the user experience.
- Update the Design and Assets
Updating the design refers to both the experience and the look of your website. To get both nailed, you will often want to hire an agency or web designer with experience in producing results like you want for your own business. While doing this, update your marketing assets to create a strong, unified brand image.
- Hire an SEO Agency
Optimizing your website for users is great, but it doesn’t always translate to higher visibility on search engines. What search engines look for is complex. Even worse, it changes regularly. Optimizing your site for search engines can feel like playing a game of roulette with no guarantee of what works and what doesn’t – for most.
While Google keeps most of what its algorithm looks for, under wraps, SEO professionals around the globe are constantly hard at work to understand and update the latest list of best practices. By hiring a local SEO agency like YEAH! Local in your area, you can update your website and improve your SEO efforts on-site and off-site, all in one go.
The goal is to get increased traffic and leads organically and to also improve the overall experience of your site for your site visitors.
- Create a Winning Content Strategy
Having a great website that is optimized for users and search engines is a great place to start, but you need to follow up. Create a content strategy that goes beyond simply keeping your website active. Try to workshop ways to bring more people to your website. Combine your on-site content with your marketing strategy and see how you can provide value for your site visitors, customers, or clients all at once for the best results.
