Jeremy Stewart of Launchpad Creative joins Nic and Sarah to talk about websites. How often should you update your website? What difference can a refresh make to the effectiveness of your site? And what sorts of things should we be updating all the time?
Here are some key take-outs:
- Jeremy says a business should now be able to get four to five years out of a website. The often-quoted logic of updating your website every two years is probably too labour-intensive.
- Sarah says to put less information on your site because people don’t want to read everything about your business anymore. She says to refresh and update your website more often — even if it’s not a total redesign.
- Most companies are now on their third or fourth version on their website. The first question tends to be “what do we need to do to replace what we’ve got?” As a result, many businesses update and replace their website section by section.
- Know what you want to say and what your audience wants to know and will engage with before you start designing, but work with a designer from the beginning so you have their input.
- Use dynamic content to reinforce your authority, keep your website fresh, and keep people engaged.
- A site needs to be clean, easy to use, and easy to navigate. It’s absolutely vital that the design is responsive to various devices.
- Someone on your team should be looking at the website analytics once a month, checking your rankings and understanding how your website is performing for you.
- Understand what the purpose of your website is and make it easy for your audience/customers to use it for that purpose.
Here are the links you might need
- Here’s an article on how often you should rebuild your website.
- And here’s another. And another.
- Here are 14 reasons you need to update your website.
On My Desk
- Nic’s recommendation was Zoom Conferencing.
- Jeremy recommended the Growth Driven Design website.
- And Sarah’s recommendation was a CMI article in which Rand Fishkin looks at search engine trends.
Have you heard the one about…
Recently Sarah and Nic took a close look at the benefits of podcasting for business.
And here’s some advice about assembling the best possible communications team for your business, even if your budget is tight.
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