Your website is the face of your business online, kind of like your digital storefront. It’s often the main way that potential customers and partners get to know you BEFORE making a purchase decision.
Although we all know how important our website is, keeping it up to date can often take a back burner compared to all of the other tasks on your to-do list.
While completely redesigning your website can feel overwhelming and time-consuming, there are so many changes you can make to your site to help put your best foot forward and keep your site from feeling dusty and outdated. Here are 5, non-technical and simple changes you can make to your website TODAY that will leave a lasting impression and improve your customer experience.
Want more help? Download our checklist for keeping your site up-to-date on a monthly and quarterly basis.
Change Your Images
Just like how a fresh paint of coat can do wonders for a room, giving your website a simple refresh with new images can make it feel like a completely new site. And, you don’t need to update every image to feel the difference.
Focus on the most high-traffic pages including your home page banner, about me, contact page, and services. Get rid of any images that look outdated (like your headshot) or aren’t seasonally appropriate.
To keep your site fresh going forward, commit to updating your banner image every quarter. This way, when returning users visit your site, they will be greeted by something new and be more inclined to see what other changes you’ve made to your business!
Update Your CTA’s
Take a hard look at your headlines and any call to action sections on your website. Why is this so important? People are notorious for skimming, and although you may have put a ton of thought into your website copy, your headlines and bold sections will be the first thing users read.
If they don’t capture your audience's attention - chances are they won’t continue perusing the rest of your site.
Make sure all of your CTA’s make sense and speak to your target audience. If you have recently shifted focus in your business or changed the products and services you offer, this is especially important to make sure all headlines and calls to action are on target.
Add New Content
One of the most tell-tale signs of an outdated website is outdated content. Haven’t written a new blog in over 2 months (or more!)? This definitely tells your audience that you aren’t active on your site, and they may even wonder whether you are still in business. The same goes for a social media feed on your site full of not-so-recent posts.
If you have a blog but haven’t posted in a while, take this opportunity to add at least one new post, and aim to add at least one post every month going forward. Blogs can be a quick update on how the business is doing, links to recent places you’ve been featured, or a sneak peek at what you have coming up.
Audit your Sign Up Forms
We all know how important email marketing is to the success of any business. (If you still need convincing, check out The Secret to Growing Your Email List and why it's so crucial. But, email sign up forms tend to get overlooked, with a set it and forget it mentality. If it’s been a while since you evaluated your form, now is the perfect time to do so. Follow these steps to audit your sign up from start to finish.
Where is your sign-up located? Is it easy to find? At a minimum, your signup should be on the footer of your website AND your contact page. It’s also a good idea to have your form prominently placed on your home page. To help with this step, ask a friend to go visit your site and sign up for your email list, and report back on how easy it was to find.
Does the form work? This might sound simple, but if you aren’t getting new email subscribers, technology might be to blame! Do a quick test to make sure your form is working and that subscribers are getting added to the correct list.
Review your welcome series. How many times have you signed up for an email list, only to get ghosted? Make sure your welcome series is on and that new subscribers are getting at a minimum ONE automated email from you. And no, the generic “you’ve been added to our email list” message doesn’t count. Your first email to a new subscriber needs to be welcoming, telling them about who you are, why your business is different, and what they can expect from joining your list.
If you got through all three steps and are ready to take it to the next level, consider adding or updating any pop-ups on your site. Pop-ups are a less passive way to collect email sign-ups, and they have the numbers to prove it! Although some users will click away from them, targeted pop-ups are highly effective at gaining subscribers and segmenting based on their interests.
Hot Tip: If you have a freebie on a specific topic, add a pop-up to pages on your site with relevant content. This is an awesome way to add emails to your list and you’ll know EXACTLY what topic that contact is interested in, allowing you to serve them better over time.
Most email marketing providers have pop-up builders, and they can also be built directly through your website. Google your specific platforms to see how best to create them.
If you also have contact forms on your website that are separate from your email list sign-ups, make sure to test those forms too, and ensure they are working!
Add New Reviews
Potential customers will be more willing to buy from you once they know how other similar people have liked your products or services. If you don’t have customer reviews on your site yet, or they haven’t been updated in a while (like since you first launched your site!), this is your sign to spend some time on it.
Just like how you need to have updated content on your website, your reviews should be current too. Look at all of your review websites (Yelp, Google, Facebook, etc) and grab the most recent reviews that haven’t made it onto your site yet.
It’s also important to make sure you have a representative sample of reviews on your site that talk about your various products and services. You want every potential customer to be able to relate to a review, so having a wide variety of your target audiences represented is critical.
That’s it, friends! We can bet that your website is feeling so refreshed and renewed right about now.
To help your website stay on track going forward, download our website checklist to keep your site up to date. We’ve broken it down into actions to take on a weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis, including lots of ways to keep your site functioning properly which we didn’t go over in this post. Get your website update checklist here!
