5 Things to Consider to Help Your Website Stay Fresh

When was the last time you looked at your website? I mean, really looked – as in go through every page, read every word, click every link, and look at it as someone who hasn’t used it before. It’s important to go through your website and check these things at least once a month. That way your website stays up-to-date and looking fresh. Some things to look for if you haven’t gone through your site in a while are:

1. Internal links. Are there links on site pages that link to other pages within your website? It is good to have these links, not only to help with your search engine optimization (SEO), but they also help lead customers through your site. An example of where to add internal links would be on the Services page on your site. If you have Service A, Service B, and Service C listed in the body copy, and each of them have their own page, then hyperlink them to their perspective pages. Or if you have “Contact us today…” in the copy of a page, link “Contact us” to your Contact Us page. This will not only make it easier for a customer to just click the link in the copy, instead of going up to the main menu.

2. External links. Similar to internal links, these links also help with your SEO, but they link to other websites. These links could be to affiliate websites, news websites, partner websites, or to your various social media outlets. If you add a link to an external website, get in contact with them and see if they would link back to your site. It is these links, from your site to theirs and theirs back to yours, which are really great for SEO.

3.Consistency. This goes for many different pieces of your website. Some of them are headings, subheads, font size, font color, and wording. Examples of consistency would be:

• Headings and bolding of headings. Below are some ways you could have your headings on your pages. Whichever one you go with, keep it consistent throughout your website.
  • Heading: Some text here

     

  • Heading
    Some text here

     

  • Heading

     

    Some text here

• Phone numbers. Another example of consistency would be the way phone numbers are written: (123) 456-7890 or 123-456-7890 or 123.456.7890. Whichever you choose, remember to keep it the same throughout your site.

4. Voice. The way that the copy / text in your site is written is important. Is it consistent and does it sound similar from page to page? Many times we write pages at different times and sometimes different people write it. Individual personalities strengthen an organization so this is not necessarily a bad thing, but make sure that everything falls in-line with your brand position.

5. Sitemap. For SEO, it is great to have a lot of pages, but if those pages have the same or similar content, consider combining them. If you have two pages that have similar information on them a user might think “Hey, didn’t I just read this.” For example:

• You could combine the About Us page and the Company History page.
• If you have a page that has a short amount of copy, see if you can combine that page with another page.

But don’t combine pages just to combine pages; if some information doesn’t fit with any other page that’s okay, it can stand alone.

I hope these tips will help you when you go through your site. If you need any help or would like a fresh perspective, give us a call at (608) 519-3070 or send us an e-mail at Info@TheBLUGroup.com.