Building a website is a huge task, which can often take hundreds of hours dedicated to design, content and development. Once the site launches, the difficult task of keeping the site up-to-date begins. While a bulk of the work may be complete, continuing work must be done to ensure the website remains up-to-date with its design, features and technology.
Updating Your Website Content
Keeping website content up-to-date is vital to maintaining a relevant site for your visitors and will encourage them to continue to visit your site. For many, a website is the most-visible and possibly the only public-facing aspect of an organization. Ensuring website content is fresh and up-to-date can help retain visitors and improve your standing within search engines.
What can I do?
Post a blog article, news article, a newsletter or other piece of information to help update your visitors on the happenings of your organization. If your organization does something cool, be sure to tell everyone!
Updating Your Website Design
Just like fashion (I would know!), website design trends can change quickly. We typically suggest updating your website’s look and feel every 2-3 years. Your organization should set the trend with an impressive, cutting-edge design that leaves your competitors in the dust! An old design can communicate to your visitors that you’re out of touch and lacking innovation. Catching your visitors’ eyes with a fresh, strong message can help deliver a solid impression and effectively establish your brand.
What can I do?
Keep tabs on your competitors and make sure you are ahead of the curve. Also, plan for a redesign of your website in about 2 years. A redesign won’t involve nearly the budget of your initial site, but it can make a world of difference in the way your brand stands out online.
Updating Your Website Features
As your site “ages,” new features and ideas can often be implemented to enhance a visitors’ experience on your site. Adding dynamic content such as videos, maps, or social media integration are just a couple ideas of content that could be added to your site to help create a more dynamic experience for your visitors. Just because your site is live and the development process is over, doesn’t mean that you can’t dream up big ideas and new functionality to add to the site. Adding new features can help keep the site fresh and relevant.
What can I do?
Get someone on your team (or call on Web Ascender) who knows the latest in web trends and technologies. Don’t be afraid to survey your visitors or run experiments to find out what’s working and where there may be room for improvement.
Stay Tuned
Step one after launching your website is keeping the front-facing content, design and features up to date. But there is a lot that goes on behind the scenes that will need attention from time to time as well. Next time, I’ll be going over everything you need to know about upgrading your website to ensure your site is functionally at the top of its game. Be sure to subscribe to the blog so you don’t miss out!