We’ve entered a new year which means your website can probably use an update. I addressed some important ways to maintain your website in a past blog, but thought it might be nice to summarize some important tips and tricks to update your website. What does it mean to update your website and how should you go about doing so? Here are a few steps to take to not only update your website, but also improve the aesthetics and functionality of the front and back end of your website.
- SECURITY
New and old websites are vulnerable to being hacked. Having a website go down or be hacked is not only stressful but can also be a long and painful process to undo. Make sure your plugins, theme, and PHP files are up to date. Having additional monitoring and firewalls put in place is key! We use a dedicated server to host all of our websites and have additional monitoring, backups and firewall put in place. - CONTENT QUALITY
Look over the quality and relevance of the visual content throughout your website. Do you have images that are outdated or low quality? Once you’ve looked over the visual content it’s time to read through the written content. Are any of the links broken? Are your blog posts outdated? Is the content not speaking true to the personality and tone of your brand? Our company website is reviewed and updated on a monthly basis! - MOBILE FRIENDLY
Is your website built to respond nicely on all devices? If not, it’s time to jump on board. Your website traffic is being viewed from small, large and every screen size in between. If you’re already on board when it comes to having a responsive website, it’s time to test the functionality. Should some of your pages be built differently for each device? Which elements are working properly and which are not? During monthly maintenance on our websites, we test the functionality on multiple devices to ensure our web sites are responding to each screen size. - ANALYTICS
Now that you’ve done an update of the visible content on your website and you’ve ensured that it responds on multiple devices, it’s time to look into the back end of your website. If you don’t already have analytics tracked on your website, it’s time to get analytics in place. If you do have analytics, are you monitoring the traffic and using the results? How are your visitors using your website? Is the content or functionality of one page producing better results than other pages? We use Google Analytics and monitor the results through dedicated dashboards for each of our websites.
If you have questions about any of these steps, contact us and we’ll be happy to help!
Senior Designer and Web Master Julie Varley is Imagine’s resident ray of sunshine, which is fitting given her Florida residence.