Your website is one of the first impressions that someone will get of your business – Stoney Degeyter
In today’s digitally connected world, organizations know what impact a neatly designed, and functioning website can have on their future. But to do so, the website needs to be updated according to the evolving norms of the dynamic business world to keep the audience engaged for a long time.
Website updates have perks of their own. It lets the business organization keep the content interesting for the audience. Did you know, more than 1 in 3 people (38%) will abandon the website if they find the content placid and unattractive? Moreover, if the business firm keeps up with the ongoing trends and updates the website accordingly, it will keep them ahead of their peers and mark their genre.
Therefore, in this blog, we will take a closer look at the most effective ways in which business organizations can update their website. To make a list more comprehensive, we have included broader terms to make our readers understand the list better.
9 Best Practices to Update a Website
Before beginning updating the website, the organizations should be certain about things they need to change.
Ask some simple questions:
- Is the website imparting a great user experience?
- Is the design of the website according to the new trends?
- Have the business sales reduced in recent times?
If the answer to the above questions is yes, it is time for the organization to revamp its website to stay afloat in the business realm. Below are the best practices that will help companies do it:
Update the content or create a new one
One of the best practices to update the business website is creating brand new content. Moreover, it is also possible to get the website back on track by adding engaging content whenever and wherever possible. This practice can be pivotal in increasing the website’s search engine ranking and compel the readers to come back for more. Thus, sensible content has a positive impact on the customer engagement rate.
For creating content that has maximum impact on the audience, the business companies can:
- Include more infographics in place of the textual content
- Start writing blogs about the nature of the website
- Update key sections of the website to increase the reach
It is essential for business organizations to understand that updating or writing new content should not be completely textual. Having relevant visual content such as images and videos is also necessary to keep the users hooked to the website for a long time. Moreover, make sure that the images and videos are aligned and according to the website’s tone.
Use animation only when necessary
Yes, we agree that animations and motion images make the website interesting and enhance its overall aesthetics. But there might be a chance that the extra animations will make the website take more time to load, thus degrading the overall user experience.
Thus, businesses must play very cautiously while including motion pictures or animations on their website. Remember that including animations should serve two purposes: it should look good, and it should be practical as well.
Keep an eye on the competitor’s website
It is essential to keep working on the website, but it is also essential to keep an eye on the fellow competitors as well. Therefore, to evaluate the credibility of the business website, do authentic market research and compare those findings with the overall performance of the website.
Doing proper market research will give the business entrepreneurs an idea about the loopholes in their website or if they are missing any crucial information. Also, the business owners will have a new perspective, and they can implement it to boost the performance of their website.
Moreover, a business organization must not shy away from using website analytics tools and enhance its website evaluation by looking at the competition data. There are some dedicated tools for website analytics such as:
Using color theory effectively
Different colors evoke different emotions in people. For example, dark green resonates admiration while deep blue resonates with grief. So if the business organization knows that, it can use the psychology of colors to amplify the website conversion rates. The graphic representation will assist the business personnels to understand if the existing color of the website is in coordination with the nature of its product or services
Along with implementing the psychology of colors, the business organizations can mix and match different shades to make the website page stand out. Different color shades will compel the visitors to take more actionable decisions and will increase their engagement with the website and the product. It is also beneficial to make the Call-To-Action (CTA) buttons in different colors from the rest of the page so that it is easily visible to the visitor.
Optimize the website speed
What is one of the biggest culprits of rubbishing the user experience: slow website speed. Websites often get penalized for slow speed by search engines. Thus, it is essential for the business organization to beef up the speed of their website. They can do so by removing unnecessary content, images and videos, etc. Moreover, they should look to include only the necessary information that pertains to the user and not barge them with irrelevant jargons.
Also read: 3 Things that Make You Improve the Site Load Speed
Add elements to make the website dynamic
Many studies have shown that first impressions matter the most as far as web design is concerned. If the website is visually appealing, it will attract more visitors and keep them engaged for longer periods.
To make the website more dynamic, business organizations must begin with the core principles of website design. Keeping the core principles intact, the firms can work on integrating some striking visual elements, and this amalgamation will assist in making the website more dynamic. Many businesses choose to outsource this process to the professionals, such as this Milwaukee Web Design and Development company. This has many benefits as you will be using experts in the field, injecting a fresh perspective to the design, and it can be cost-effective too. From videos to sound to images and more, they can add, update or edit everything on the website and make it more visually appealing.
Design the website according to the current trends
Business organizations must keep up-to-date with the trends to employ all the good practices of a website redesign. And for knowing the trends, it is not necessary that the business personnel must be an ace designer. They can keep themselves updated by reading related blogs, tech magazines, browsing specific social media networks, etc.
Social media platforms such as Dribble and Behance will give the business organizations a fairer idea about what kind of design is prevailing in the market. They can relate that design with the nature of their website and implement it accordingly.
Keep the website SEO friendly
Optimizing the website is necessary as every business organization wants its audience to find its online platform with utmost ease. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) becomes even more important when the entire website gets revamped. It becomes essential for the business organization to alt texts for the new images and take care of the extra added web pages requiring URL optimization.
SEO is vital as Google will rate the performance of the website on different parameters such as:
- Bounce rate
- Time spent on pages
- Social shares
- Inbound links
- Pages viewed per visit
And neatly curated SEO process will assist in building a strong link structure and make the website crawlable. Also, a different set of keywords that typically range from two to five words would allow the potential customers of the web platform to find it easily and thus increase the business’s visibility online.
Know what the audience thinks of the website
Along with employing all the techniques mentioned above to update the website effectively, the business organization must know what the audience thinks of their website. This might be a scenario where the organization forgets to see what’s on the other side as it has been working behind the scenes for a long time.
There are a plethora of ways to know what are the likes and dislikes of the targeted audience. The business can ask them directly using different social media platforms, email campaigns, polls, dedicated surveys, etc.
Solicit feedback from the users will also enable the business house to know what features of the website are liked by the audience and the ones they need to work upon. Moreover, this practice will also increase the website’s credibility and make it more authentic.
Accordions and social media integration
If the website of the business organization is a little content-heavy, an accordion can help it appear slimmer by hiding some of the content. Now an accordion is a design element that allows the website to expose the content to its users progressively. Thus, it will be safe to say that the accordion is a fine amalgamation of content management tools and user experience tools.
Moreover, as far as social media integration is concerned, website visitors must be aware that the business product or service is available on social media platforms. Place the social media icons so that they are visible to the visitors. Moreover, if possible, place a clickable link on the icons that will directly take the potential customers to the social media platforms, thus increasing the engagement rate.
Final thoughts
Updating the website is a crucial process. Thus, business organizations need to pay attention to even the minutest of detail. Moreover, the practices mentioned above will assist the firm in building a formidable and user-friendly website keeping all bases covered.
A well-thought website update process will also be vital in increasing the online presence of the business organization and keeping it afloat in today’s ever-evolving circumstances.
