A website update is needed as it has to be taken care as a pet needs to be fed. Just like you water the flowers and you clean your house; your online space is a home for all the visitors that land on it. So, you need to make sure you keep it at its best, to make it welcoming, and friendly for all users on it. That is just caring that needs to be done for the sake of the best outcome of your web business.
For a website update, you need to refresh it, update it, and look for what is not working well or is not convenient for the success you are going after. There are lots of ways to improve your site and to increase awareness, conversions, or whatever it is that you desire.
1. Measure and Analyze
Before you even think of a website update, you need to plan your steps. In other words, you need to find out what is working, and what is not, analyze that data, and decide what are the best actions for improving that. Thus, having clear thoughts about what needs to be changed will give a clear plan to follow and ease the process of tuning your website.
There are lots of tools you can use to do that. Keep in mind your customers’ insights, and track their user experience – what pages do they go to, where do they click, what kind of audience segmentation is there on your website, etc. For example, proper tools for these are Google Analytics, Hotjar, and Screaming frog for fixing other problems with pages or links.
2. Web Hosting Plan
One of the first things you need to check is your provider’s plans. So, take a good look at your website hosting features and capabilities and think about what more you can get if you need it. An upgrade can freshen up a lot about your website and give you the power to grow much more. It is something that will have a great outcome for your website update.
Sometimes you don’t mind enough the necessity of a good plan and this leads to a lack of the performance of it. Thus, make sure you can provide as many as possible monthly visits, you have enough space, and email opportunities. Compare and look at the plans (Shared Hosting, WordPress Hosting, Semi-Dedicated, or VPS Cloud Web Hosting) to fully acknowledge your need.
3. Responsive Design Check
Firstly, the design of devices different from a computer is one of the most repulsive things about a website. So, when you are doing the research for yours, start with how many people are visiting it on mobile devices, tablets, and desktops. This will point you in the right direction of how your pages should look.
I hope you’ve taken care of that, but it never hurts to do a check of all the pages to make sure they all respond to different browsers and designs. Most importantly, this is one of the first things that users notice and it drives their decisions about whether to exit the website or not. To clarify, this is not a website update, but more a reassurance that everything works well.
4. Social Up
When it comes to renovating and updating the website so that it performs better and attracts more people, you should also think outside of the box. Most people decide that they need to change their design and it will fly sales up to meet their needs. But it doesn’t always work like that.
More often what users need is to be heard, noticed, and taken care of. This happens when you build a bond with them and start conversations, listen to answers, and interact. Therefore, being present on social media is a must. Even if you were up to this point, still try to fresh things there too and learn what social media optimization is.
For example, think of new ways to get users to engage – games, campaigns, quizzes, or else. It will improve your presence and raise awareness. It is not a direct tuning up of a website, but it is a brand improvement that is definitely needed.
5. Fix Problems
This might sound generalized but it is something to be taken care of too. Fixing problems is a broad expression and it includes all kinds of stones you need to jump over. In other words, pages that redirect, 404 pages, their look, the message on them, broken links, missing links, alt text for images, photos that are not resized and compressed, duplicated headlines, etc.
All of these and much more are crucial to the performance of a website. If you want it to be tuned up, it definitely needs time to figure it all out. Also, don’t forget to add and optimize meta descriptions, look for missing content, and refresh it. Even more, start storytelling. Tell your story and your customers’ stories.
6. Old Pages and Posts
Speaking of updates and fixing problems, your pages and posts also need to be reviewed with time. What does reviewed mean? For instance, take a look at your old posts in your blog, news, or whatever you are using them for. Are they outdated? Also, is the content thin and not useful?
Do you think that there are articles that are too short and can be combined? Is their design similar? Likewise, do you need to fix something – a broken link, a headline, an image, or whatever else there might be.
Furthermore, do the same with the pages. Is the information present and accurate? Is there something that can be changed in order for them to perform better? Above all, can you improve the user experience on them and make it easier for people to navigate, follow, understand, etc.
Conclusion
Everything above has a significant role in turning your website into the best possible version for you. To sum up, it does not take just the creation to monetize, it takes constant care, updating, and tuning up. So, to sum everything up, make sure you are with the most convenient for your website hosting plan, check your responsive design, be present on social media, start a blog if you haven’t, and think of ways to get people to interact.
Furthermore, use tools to check the pages on your website for problems that may not appear at first, and follow the steps of the plan you created for updating plugins, themes, pages, and posts. In conclusion. everything, small or big, will help you provide a better website where people find what they are looking for.