“How often should I update my website?”

Ever wondered how often you should update or re-design your website?

“How often should I update my website?” is such a great question, and is one that is frequently typed into Google – up to hundreds of thousands of times a day.

Many sources are of the view that a company should refresh its website, or even completely re-design it, as frequently as every two to three years. However, most businesses review it after five years if their website is performing well.

That being said, you should still review your website regularly and make small amendments as and when you need to. Your website needs to constantly evolve and grow to match the expectations and requirements of customers. Luckily, the analytical tools available today mean you don’t have to play the guessing game on what is working well on your website, and what isn’t.

There is no better or more cost-effective way to advertise your business and continually drive business growth than through your website. Here are just a few things to have in mind when you’re thinking about refreshing or redesigning your website. Why not take a look and see how many resonate with you?

Design

When people visit your website, it is vital that it looks professional and contains the information that your customers want to see. If the website looks poorly designed and structurally difficult to navigate, your customers may well make the same assumptions about your company. Some simple things to check for are images on your website, making sure that they accurately reflect the business and the message you are trying to present and are not out of date.

Responsive & Mobile Friendly

Did you know that most website visits come from mobile devices? A responsive website will be able to adapt the layout and content to suit the size of screen which they are presented on. An effective, responsive website will have a greater likelihood of a high SEO (Search Engine Optimization) ranking and can help you to convert and retain more clients in the long run.

Coding

If your website was developed a few years ago, it is likely that it will contain unnecessary code which may be slowing down your website. This may, in turn, impact your Google search results.

SEO & Website Update

Just like your website itself, your digital marketing and SEO strategy should be regularly refreshed in order to support search engine rankings efforts. Search engines like fresh content and regard websites with the most recent content as the most relevant to web users. Your content might be great, but if it’s the same content as it was 5 years ago, then search engine crawlers may no longer consider it relevant. A re-design also gives you a chance to re-think your keyword targeting. Check out our last blog on SEO.

Website Speed

The loading time of your website is a major factor in determining whether people stay on the site, or leave it and never return. Check out Google Page Speed Insights and find out how long your site takes to load. If your score is low (slow), then you need to identify the elements of your website that are slowing it down. Images and the size of images can often be a factor here.

In Conclusion: Having a website is one of, if not the most important, things to have for a business. Websites need to be cared for and updated - not just for the design aspects we have spoken about above, but also for the security of your site, as the older the code the more likely you are to be at risk.