Before you write another blog post or add another video, you’re likely to accomplish much more by using a site audit to refresh your website. Here’s why:
First, the fact is Google prefers fresh content. And, like it or not, Google is still the behemoth for search engine results.
Another consideration is marketing strategy. Assuming you have a clear one, you’ve likely made changes over time. You want your content to reflect those changes.
Evaluating and enhancing your web structure and content is a way of shoring up your online presence. And it helps ensure your new content is easy to find.
Now that you know why it’s important let’s look at how to go about a website refresh.
Step 1: Identify and leverage top-performing content
According to personal development expert Tom Ziglar, the fastest way to improve one’s life is to replace bad habits with good ones.
Ziglar’s advice is solid for making a positive life change, and you can do something similar to optimize your website. But rather than replace underperforming content, you’ll eliminate or update it.
Still, you want to make the most of the content already getting good results. Here’s how.
Assess your top-performing posts and make sure you understand why they’re doing better than the rest. Here are a few common causes:
- Are you using the right keywords? A simple and ridiculously inexpensive tool like Keywords Everywhere can help you with this. Trust us; it’s worth the learning curve.
- Is your content aligned with your audience’s search intent? In other words, are you speaking to the motive behind the words the user types into search? For example, if a post is performing well, it’s probably on target because you made it informational, transactional, or research-oriented. Use this knowledge to guide future content and media.
- Is your headline an attention grabber? According to advertising legend David Ogilvy:
“On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.”
Now let’s take a look at a structural element.
Step 2: Check your website speed
Beautiful web design and great content won’t help if site visitors click away because your home page takes forever to load.
Go to https://pagespeed.web.dev/, type in yourcompanyname.com, and check both your mobile and desktop results.
Don’t pay as much attention to the performance score for now. Our is 87, but we know why and have reasons for being ok with it.
As for your site, pay the closest attention to the top two lines, especially TTI or “Time to Interactive,” which describes how quickly the homepage populates and allows visitors to navigate your website.
If it takes over 5 seconds to load, you’ll want to get some help. User experience (UX) studies show that 57% of folks leave if it takes longer than three seconds.
Step 3: Apply your findings to refresh your website
Remember, the goal here is to refresh your website, not revamp it. So here are some basics that don’t require a significant mental or financial investment.
- Improve the writing quality – don’t underestimate the value of digital writing tools like the Hemingway Editor or Grammarly. AI writing tools such as copy.ai are popping up everywhere and can lessen the blank page woes, but don’t underestimate the power of developing your voice.
- Re-Examine Your Keyword Strategy – If you’re not using keywords in your title tags, meta descriptions, page headers, and URL structure, now’s the time to start. You want to make sure your pages contain relevant keywords so they’ll rank higher when people search using those terms.
- Update Your Images. Images are an essential part of your website design, helping users navigate your site more efficiently. In addition, a fresh image can give a unique appeal to an article, like the new paint in a living room.
As a busy business owner, you may not be ready to address all of these items at once. So take an incremental approach.
But do consider getting help on some of the important stuff, such as site speed. It won’t break the bank, and it will make a big difference in performance.
Making these small changes to refresh your website, and seeing positive results, will likely inspire you to learn even more.
