There isn't much in the digital world that isn't constantly changing and evolving. Your website should be no different. To keep your audience engaged and your content desirable, you must stay on top of your game and cover the most recent trends. Otherwise, you risk coming across as stale and irrelevant. With a website builder like Strikingly, you can easily change your site and give it a facelift. Our simple guide will show you how to update your website efficiently.
Why Should You Update Your Website?
Websites update needs to be done regularly. Consider whether a few simple changes could help bring your site to the next level before embarking on a full-fledged website update, including website redesign (a hefty project that could take much longer). Knowing how to design a website is one thing; keeping it constantly updated is another story. And if you're not sure whether your site requires some website maintenance, here are some reasons to do so:
- The design is outdated
- Your online store's sales have decreased
- You're rethinking your keyword targeting and overall SEO strategy
- Make navigation easier with better website menus
- Improve your bounce rate, website speed, and other important site metrics
How to Update Your Website?
The start of a new year is an excellent time to take a fresh look at your website. While you probably work with small parts of your website daily, resolving to dig a little deeper and update your website more broadly will pay dividends in the coming year! Numerous approaches can be taken. You may simply want to ensure that everything is up to date and working properly, or you may want to make major changes, such as changing the primary keywords that your site targets. With the foregoing in mind, we'll introduce seven key strategies on how to update your website in this post. Let's get started!
1. Verify that Everything is Still Operational and Up to Date
Image is taken Strikingly user’s website
The first thing you'll want to do is double-check that everything on your site, big and small, is still operational. This entails conducting a thorough audit of your site – if possible, going through each page – and looking for issues such as:
- Plugins or themes that need to be updated.
- Missing and/or low-quality images
- Incorrect or out-of-date user information
- Broken hyperlinks (you can address this using a plugin).
- Faulty features and/or plugins.
- Issues with formatting and/or style.
- Incomplete and/or out-of-date content
This may be a lot, but each page must leave a lasting impression. Thus updating a website is a crucial step. While going through your site, it's a good idea to double-check that your content is organized correctly. Finally, always make a backup before making any changes!
2. Conduct A/B Testing
When you update your website, you should assess whether your site is as effective as it could be. A/B testing is one of the most effective methods for accomplishing this. In a nutshell, the technique entails creating two versions of something and testing them against each other. Assume you want people who visit your home page to sign up for an email list. You could make two different versions of that page, each with a different type of call to action (such as a button or popup). Then you could send visitors to one of two pages at random and see which one receives the most clicks. There are numerous tools available to WordPress users to assist with this process. We recommend starting with Nelio A/B Testing, a high-quality plugin that offers a comprehensive set of testing options.
3. Seek Feedback from Your Intended Audience
Image is taken Strikingly user’s website
In addition to conducting your own testing, you should find out what your current audience thinks of your site. When you spend a lot of time working behind the scenes, it's easy to forget what it's like to be on the other side. As a result, soliciting direct feedback from your regular visitors to assist you to update your website is a good idea. Learn what your target audience likes and dislikes and what features or content they value. You should also figure out what problems they come to your site to solve. It's best to ask for feedback directly to encourage it. This can be accomplished through comment threads or forums, an email campaign, or even a dedicated survey or poll.
4. Conduct Market Research on Your Competitors
Image is taken Strikingly user’s website
When you update your website, it's easy to become so focused on your own site that you lose sight of what your competitors are up to. The start of a new year is a good time to check-in and see if you're still competitive in your field or niche and see what other sites have been up to. Fortunately, there are dedicated tools available to assist you in conducting this research. Most are concerned with assisting you in comparing your site to others through the use of specific metrics. SimilarWeb, for example, displays traffic information for any site, and BuzzSumo allows you to see which pieces of content from your competitors were the most successful. Alternatively, look into Ahrefs, which will tell you exactly what you need to do to outrank similar businesses. You can then use the information from your competitor's research to improve your own website.
5. Examine Your Own Analytics
Aside from keeping tabs on your competitors' web site updater, it's also a good idea to consider data that's a little closer to home. If you're already tracking your site with analytics, dig into them to learn things like
- Which pages on your site are the most popular
- If any of your pages have unusually high bounce rates
- Which pages generate the most engagement, if you aren't already tracking analytics for your site, make the new year the time to integrate Google Analytics with WordPress!
6. Revisit Your Keywords
Keywords are an essential component of any website's strategy. The right ones will help you rank higher in search engines, making your site more visible. Even if you did a lot of keyword research when you first built your site, search volumes could change at any time. This means that the keywords you're using may no longer effectively bring in your target audience. To correct this, you should review your site's main keywords. Google Keyword Planner is an excellent tool for this purpose. Alternatively, you can use KWFinder, a third-party tool that allows you to conduct a limited number of searches per day for free. If you discover that keywords have fallen out of favor or are underperforming, you can revise existing content to target more powerful alternatives.
7. Create New Content (or Update Existing Content)
Image is taken Strikingly user’s website
Finally, creating new content is a highly beneficial way of updating a website. Even if your site is mostly static, it's good to update it with interesting, high-quality content whenever possible. This can improve your search engine rankings and keep readers coming back for more. Here are a few ideas for how to use content to its best advantage:
- Create a blog (if you haven't already)
- Produce videos or infographics to supplement text-based content
- Rewrite important sections of your website, such as the Contact and About pages
The start of a new year is also a good time to commit to a regular posting schedule. Your audience will appreciate it!
Having a Website Created with Strikingly
If you use Strikingly, you can easily keep updating a website and its content whenever you want. We have a simple, drag-and-drop interface. This means that you can not only upload any content you want to your web pages by dragging a file and dropping it into the editor, but you can also rearrange the content and edit your text. You will not need to write any code to update your website on Strikingly. You can use our editor in the same way you would a Word or Powerpoint document. If you need to change some text on a web page, click on the text and type in the replacement text. Then press the 'Publish' button to make the changes live.
Strikingly's goal is to make creating, maintaining, and updating a website as easy as possible for you. Using our platform saves you the time and effort of contacting and paying a professional web developer to update your website. With us, you can handle the front end on your own while we support the backend to ensure your website is error-free.
Conclusion
The preceding information highlights the most important and common signs to look for when determining whether your site is becoming an "old hat." Although there may be additional indicators for updating a website, this list should be sufficient to set you on the right track. Even if you update your website regularly, it is critical to take the time to ensure that your site is operating as efficiently as possible. This entails thoroughly reviewing your site, conducting research, and experimenting with a few changes.
