When to Update your Website: 2022

4 Reasons to Update your Website

#1. Website SEO

A website update gives you the opportunity to revise any keywords, meta descriptions, content, etc. Google releases a major algorithm update approximately every 6 months. We run SEO audits on our own website every week to track keyword rankings, keyword phrases, page views, and performance. Keeping a record of performance can indicate when an update is necessary. Roughly half of users leave a website if the load speed is longer than 3 seconds. If you haven’t already, one of the best pieces of content to implement on your website are blogs. Implement a content strategy to keep a website active and fresh. With the ability to stuff them full of keywords, link to additional internal pages, and share them on your digital presence to increase web traffic. The biggest factor Google takes into account when ranking your website is: mobile-optimized viewing. Is your website mobile ready? Making this adjustment alone can increase your website traffic by at least 11%. [SearchEngineLand]

#2. Brand Exposure

By Improving the SEO, structure, and website design, search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.) will index your website and rank it higher on the search results page. With this enhanced website visibility, your website traffic and customer loyalty will increase, improving brand awareness and exposure. Of course, getting more eyes on your content isn’t the only factor to developing your brand awareness. Utilizing modern and unique designs, create a memorable experience for your users. For inspiration on how to update your website design check out our blog where we discuss the Top Website Design Trends of 2022.

#3. Upgrade Technology

Under the umbrella of SEO lies your website’s technical SEO. Website structure, plugins, and security; all of these are weighed by search engines. Google will not push a website that has the potential for a security breach. Update your website’s technical SEO by implementing schema, ensuring images are optimized (compressed and have alt-descriptions), install an SSL certificate, etc. Make sure your website navigation is optimized for user experience. Are your plugins up to date? What is your page load speed?

#4. Branding or Website Design

We briefly discussed brand awareness and web design in our ‘Brand Exposure’ section. Not only will website design have an impact on your brand awareness, but it will also impact your website’s SEO. User interface and user experience (UI/UX) play a huge role in how a search engine will crawl your website and determine its ranking.

Ensure your images are hi-res (and optimized properly for web viewing). Is your website navigation and menus intuitive? Your website is the first thing most customers will see. Make a good first impression. Utilize content above the fold, draw the eye across your page to the desired button or CTA. 48% of people cited a website’s design as the number one factor in deciding the credibility of a business. [Ironpaper]

Don’t put off updating your website until it’s too late. Staying ahead of the curve is the best way for your business to survive and beat your competitors.

When Should I Update my Website?

There are a few simple questions to ask yourself or your marketing team. Has there been a recent dip in your traffic? What is your bounce rate? If your answer was yes to either of those questions, it’s time. By the time your website analytics are showing a decline in stats, your website is past due for an update. Updating your website with new content, such as blogs, images, or other resources should be done at least once a month.

The frequent addition of blog content signals Google that your website is active, thus the higher ranked your site will be. Writing blogs to support your current keywords as well as industry adjacent keywords will solidify your expertise as well as increase your overall website rankings.

Bigger updates may include updated/new keywords, a change in headings, updates to images, adjustments to meta or alt descriptions, and additional internal links. Internal links help Google understand your website and structure. When linking to internal pages, make sure your anchor text is descriptive and clear.

Including meta/alt descriptions on images improves your accessibility, enabling those who are visually impaired to browse your content.

User intent changes all the time, update your header keywords to reflect search trends. Stay up to date on what your customers are looking for and asking. How Often Should a Website be Updated?

Our digital marketing team at Nexrage typically encourages clients to update their website SEO at minimum every 6 months. A full update should be anywhere from every 2 to 5 years.

Why is it Important to Update a Website?

Updating your website content, keywords, and design are crucial to keep customers up to date. With the addition of new content, your website will see increased traffic and rank higher on search engines. Adjusting your keyword strategy every 6 months ensures your website will stay up to date with Google algorithm updates. Changing your design will help build trust, make a good first impression, keeps your website active, and up to date with trends. These updates will improve customer loyalty and trust.

Conclusion

The first step of a website update is a full inventory and SEO audit of your website pages, content, elements, design, keywords, and navigation. Check to see what’s working and what’s not.

When conducting a website audit, we recommend installing a user heat map for a visual representation of how your design impacts user behavior. Where does a visitor’s mouse hover frequently? Where a user stops scrolling on the home page, what buttons they linger over and click most often. What do they interact with most? What are they ignoring? These will give you clues to what needs to be updated in your design and website structure.

Next take a look at referring keywords and phrases. Are people navigating to your site directly? What are they searching to find you? What was the intent behind the search? The answers will indicate what needs to change in your SEO and marketing strategy.

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Check out our blog on How To Build an App like Uber.

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