We can’t all afford to get a brand new website every few years. Here are five easy ways for you to refresh your website.
Delete Old, Out-of-Date Content
Go through your website and find truly out-of-date content and erase it. Unless that event list from 2017 contains a significant event that is important to communicate still, dump it. Having old, out-of-date content like this doesn’t help your website ranking.
Here is a good litmus test for content removal:
- Does it get pageviews?
- Are other websites linking to it?
- Will anybody miss it if it is gone?
If you can answer all those questions with no, it may make sense to erase them. If you answered yes, you might want to update the content.
Update Your Legacy Content
Find old posts and pages that have performed well but are no longer bringing in as much traffic and update them. How do you update existing content?
Start by going through your legacy content and updating the keywords, headlines, and introduction. You will want to make sure you are targetting the current keywords in your industry, which can change frequently.
If the ideas are good, but the content just never performed, consider a total re-write. When you finish, update the publish date on the page to the current date and re-publish.
Update the Font
Updating your headline and body font can make a huge difference in your website’s visual appeal. If your website has Google fonts loaded and a content management system, switching your fonts can be as simple as selecting a new style from a dropdown list.
Some key factors to keep in mind:
- Legibility: make sure it is easy to read
- Context: a handwritten font is excellent for a personal brand but may cheapen a B2B brand
If you are stuck on which fonts to look at, we identified some of our favorite Google fonts for 2021 here.
Re-Imagine Your Home Page
The home page is a great place to spend a little more time refreshing. Consider honing your sales message by focusing on your latest features and their benefits.
Look at your home page with an order of prominence. It helps to divide it into 3-5 sections in descending importance. Keep it skimmable, user-focused, and conversational.
Ensure your home page has a compelling and straightforward call to action – website refreshes are the perfect time to bring more thought to your CTA.
Your home page is the first content someone is likely to see; updating it will also give you essential feedback on what messaging works and what doesn’t.
Adjust Your Background and Accent Colors
Last but not least, color! It may be the least likely to improve your search engine ranking, but updating your colors will have the most significant visual impact on your users.
If you have a white background on your website, consider moving to an off-white gray or cream. Consider making your accent colors complementary to your existing color scheme but new.
An excellent tool for this is Color-Hex. Select or input any color and find monochromatic, triadic, and complementary colors for it. If you’d like an even more random but fun color experience, I love to use Coolors for generating and saving entire color palettes.
When is a refresh too little?
Consider a complete redesign of your website if it is challenging to use, or it has been more than five years since it was first published, or your business growth is not reflected in your website.
Use one or use them all; these five simple steps can bring new life to your website. If you need guidance implementing even minor changes, contact us here.
