Top tips: how to refresh your website content

Have you looked at your business’ website recently? It might sound like a strange question, however many of us spend hours each day looking at other people’s websites, yet little time on our own. Being that your website is your shop front, the first thing that potential clients will see, it’s worth investing some time into it to ensure that everything is relevant and up to date.

We’ve worked with many businesses to refresh their website content and have put together some top tips to help you embark on your website content refresh project.

Perform a content audit

A good place to start with any website content refresh is by doing a content audit. Does your website still reflect your brand, your message and what you are trying to achieve? If you are happy the content is still relevant, this is a great start. If not, it’s worth re-wording your about us and service pages to better reflect what you do. Remember less is more when it comes to website copy. The average person spends just 15 seconds on a website, that’s not much time to capture their attention and keep them there.

Break it down by pages

Once you’ve audited your current content, the easiest way to refresh this content is to break it down into pages and to treat each section like a project of its own. For each page check all the content is relevant and on brand, grammatically correct and that any links on your site are still operating and not broken. If you have a team page, for example, are all the relevant people in there or have some left. On your contact page are all the email addresses and phone numbers up to date?

Write with SEO in mind

Another important thing to consider when you are performing a content refresh is SEO. Is your content SEO friendly and therefore helping your website to rank high in search engines? If not, this is something worth investigating. SEO content features keywords which are terms you think your potential customers might be searching for and related terms others are searching for. Keyword research is fairly simple to do and most copywriters these days are well versed in SEO content writing.

Consider what might be missing

Having edited your current content, it’s also worth considering if your site is missing anything important. For example, do you have any customer case studies, a blog or news section. All of these are great tools for helping promote your product or offering in a less ‘salesy’ manner. An effective case study is an evergreen form of content that is interesting, relevant and doesn’t become dated. It can be used time and time again in its entirety or made into separate blogs or infographics and offers multiple options for sharing. It is a great piece of content to have on your website. Alternatively blogs are a great opportunity to talk as a thought leader on relevant topics and share on social media to drive traffic to your site.

Check the site navigation

Lastly is your site easy to navigate? It’s worth taking a step back and looking at your site with a fresh pair of eyes or asking a friend or family member to take part in a usability test. Is everything user friendly and is it easy to find the information you’re looking for? We have all experienced that frustration of trying to find a simple email address or contact that is just not readily available on some websites.

These basic tips should help you carry out a simple website content refresh yourself. If you are looking at a bigger overhaul of your site or simply don’t have the time and would like some help, The Wordsmith Partnership has helped a myriad of businesses update their websites. Contact us to find out how we could help you.