Keep Your Website Current To Please Visitors And Google

What do you currently do to keep your website current? When was the last time you updated anything? For many site owners, an occasional blog post is the only thing that’s current, but that’s not enough.

Think of your website like a computer. Would you rather use the outdated IBM above or a new desktop with a lightning fast processor and all the latest software? You’d want new and fast versus outdated and seemingly abandoned.

It’s easier than you think to keep your website current. Make it a priority and you might start to see conversions increase.

Current Content Boosts Search Rank

You’ve probably already heard that your site needs regular content to rank better. The problem is you might get busy and update twice this week, skip the next week, post once the next and then do three the fourth week. Eventually, posts are so scattered that they’re not helping nearly as much as you’d like. Plus, all the other content on your site needs to be kept current as well.

Start by sticking to a schedule for blogging. The next step is to keep visitors engaged by incorporating content trends, such as visuals. Adding images to a post increases engagement by 650%. The more engaged visitors are, the longer they stay and the more they share, leading to more traffic and a better search rank. If your selling products, update the descriptions with videos, which boost conversions by as much as 85%.

Newer Designs Impress Visitors

If your site looks outdated or has a poor design, visitors will likely leave. In fact, 38% of visitors leave a site if the content design and layout isn’t attractive. An outdated design costs you business. In most cases, a poor design hurts your site works than content. Newer designs make it easier for visitors to navigate and find the information they need. Endless searching leaves visitors frustrated and they won’t come back. What’s worse is they’ll refer their friends to competing sites.

If your last design overhaul was back in 2005, it’s long past time to update the design. Keep your site looking fresh and it’ll be far more competitive.

Improve Performance With Better Coding

Slow loading images, poor coding practices and implementing too many extras, such as plugins, drastically slow down a site. While some of that may have been cutting edge 5-10 years ago, things have changed. With 79% of online consumers stating they wouldn’t return to a poor performing website, it’s vital to boost speed and performance. Ideally, a website should load within three seconds or less. If it doesn’t, you could lose visitors and revenue.

Slow loading pages could even get you penalised by Google. The last thing you want is older code, large images and too many extras clogging up your site and pushing visitors and Google away.

Stay On Top Of Trends

While some trends fade away, others are definitely here to stay. For instance, responsive design isn’t going anywhere. Incorporating some of the latest trends helps to keep your website current. From the design itself to content best practices, pay close attention to trends. Interactive elements, better UX design and opting for personal over stock images are just a few of 2016’s trends.

Give Visitors Reasons To Come Back

The most important reason to keep your website current is to give your visitors a reason to keep coming back. If nothing about your site ever changes, visitors get bored and move on to the latest and greatest. Just look at social media. If Facebook didn’t keep changing, it could get lost in the past like MySpace. Listen to what your visitors want. Look at your competitors’ sites.

Make changes to your design. Update your content. Do whatever it takes to stay current and relevant to your audience.

Audit Regularly To Keep Your Website Current

Take the time to perform site audits regularly to help keep your website current. These allow you to find and improve performance issues, re-work outdated content and improve lead generation. Between audits and regular blogging, your site will stay current in the eyes of your visitors and Google.

Is your website anything but current? Check out our services to get your site back on track and go from outdated to your competitors’ worst nightmare.

Image: Alan Light