Today, when web technologies develop at a high speed, owning an eminent website looks like a hard work, even with website planning tools and software. Obviously, it is an understandable thing. First of all, there are so many features that appear every season or even month. Without a doubt, not all of them make sense but you never know for sure before you try them. Secondly, in the world of web design fashion is as unpredictable as it is for fashion-mongers. Thus, new web trends continue appearing, so we can see the long lists of them at the end of every year. The same thing is with colors, buttons, web fonts, photography, etc. The thing is that sometimes a strong desire to be in trend makes a user forget about significant points. Therefore, in this post, we put together 10 important factors that will help your website to be up-to-date.
Although the list of today’s web trends and novelties is truly scaring, keeping your project up-to-date can be a breeze. Now your main task is to stay modern and make sure that every piece of your site is relevant. We understand that it does sound like you have a lot of things to be done… Still, updating your online project is not such an unusual step. All you need to do is to remember only the most important factors and work with them. Have you ever been sure that the site you own is up-to-date? Did you finished its upgrade or just got stuck on a particular step? Whatever your answer is, now it is time to take a fresh look at your online child.
Some users think that building a beautiful website is enough to meet success. Well, we believe that website creation is just a beginning. Keeping your site updated – that is the task that does matter. As it was promised, this article will guide you by the hand through the most vital points. So, what are the factors that influence the topicality of any website?
1st Factor to Make Sure that Your Website is Up-to-Date: Blog
Needless to say, blogs are the website format that is popular during decades! Although times are changing, the internet users continue enjoying the blogs that come with high-quality content. Still, there is one difference between modern and old blogs. These days, website owners prefer running a blog as a part of their website rather than start a separate project. Honestly speaking one of the main reasons that created such situation is SEO. Basically, being a part of a huge website, a blog can improve search results. On the other hand, blog section helps the website owner to become closer to his/ her readers. With it, you can create a strong relationship with the guests of your site.
Here we can see a common mistake of the new website owners. They launch a blog and do their best to attract people with its help. Then, when everything works and the number of unique visitors becomes bigger, unskilled users neglect this part of the site. Thus, your first step to success will be updating the blog section. You should do it regularly to keep the site up-to-date. Publish new posts at least once per week! Don’t forget to add the actual keywords and meta tags. They will show Google that you and your project are still here. Plus, the visitors of the site will also notice this activity. It is a great way to keep people engaged. We recommend you to turn on newsletter notification. As a result, the viewers will get the emails as soon as a recent post appears.
2nd Factor to Make Sure that Your Website is Up-to-Date: Get Use from Your Analytics
Without a doubt, a customer/ a reader/ a visitor makes the most honest way to see your minuses. No, you do not need to text the visitors of your site asking them for reviews. Actually, the analytics will do all the work for you. Using it, you can see all the popular parts of the online project. As the same time, you are able to understand what pages have the lack of attention. Can you see these pages? Thus, take a closer look at them. Put yourself in the place of your prospect and try to figure out why the audience is not impressed.
What should you change now? To make a long story short, it can literally be anything. You may need to change the appearance of a page or recreate its structure. Moreover, the problem can be related to a poor navigation, so you will need it to be user-friendly. In the end, you may even want to delete such pages or replace them with new content.
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3rd Factor to Make Sure that Your Website is Up-to-Date: Responsiveness
The next factor that will help you to get an up-to-date website is a totally responsive design. As you may know, the feature makes the online project work wonderful on any gadget. The same thing is with the visual look of the site. It will load and look fantastic on all the screen sizes. Still, here we meet the next mistake. Undeniably, modern people got used to the convenient technologies. Therefore, many site owners don’t want to waste their time on checking the quality of their projects. Yes, 100% responsive design is a powerful tool but you have to check it and see that everything works well. In fact, you should run usability test at least 1 time per year.
How to add responsiveness to your online pages? Luckily, 2018 brought us tones of useful products. Among them, you can see the outstanding WordPress themes that already come with a highly responsive design.
4th Factor to Make Sure that Your Website is Up-to-Date: Fix Your Broken Links
It is a regular thing to use multiple things that connect the pages of your online project. What can be wrong with this point? Unfortunately, the beginners remember about these elements just before they are added. Then website owners usually create a newer post or design another page. With it, no one is interested in the destiny of old links. No one except your new visitors that went to the site because they found the related products/ services, etc. in the search results. As a result, people will not find the content that attracted them to your site. Should we explain that it will disappoint or even irritate the new guests? Anyway, they will not want to use this website again.
To sum everything up, you need to keep an eye on your old links and fix them if needed. Usually, they appear because of pages relocation and archived content. Honestly, it does not matter how many pages your website consists of. Broken links can appear on a giantlike site as well as on a simple landing page. Think about it in case you want the site to be up-to-date.
5th Factor to Make Sure that Your Website is Up-to-Date: Use the Benefits of Social Media
Now everyone knows that social media is not just a thing we use to chat with friends. It is an influential platform for the prosperity of your website. We recommend you to integrate the website will all the well-liked social networks like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Thanks to this step, people will be able to share your content via their social network accounts. Also, use collections feature. It is especially helpful for the online projects that are based on pictures. Such as portfolios. On the other hand, eCommerce sites have a lot of images as well. The function lets the visitors create the eye-catching collections of your photographs and share them on social media. Finally, it will bring you more social traffic and there will be more people to know about the site.
Another important factor is that you will be able to share the updates from social media as well. For example, you can add Insta gallery to the design of your main page. Talking about this point, you need to make sure that each of your accounts provides the audience with the regular updates.
6th Factor to Make Sure that Your Website is Up-to-Date: Update Your Testimonials
As you may know, during 2017 and 2018 testimonials became one of the most popular design elements. Website owners love them because of beauty and simplicity. Sometimes they use the feature to share the unique quotes that are connected with the site’s purpose. However, today the most common use of testimonials is related to the customers’/ readers’/ clients’ words. Thus, people use this soft design element to show the reviews. The thing is that not every site owner remembers that they should update this information to have an up-to-date website. Without a doubt, the modern audience consists of the experienced internet users. They will notice cheating before you will try to update the page. Therefore, you should use only real opinions for testimonials. It will both improve the look of your online project and wake trust in the hearts of your potential clients.
7th Factor to Make Sure that Your Website is Up-to-Date: Check Twice if Your Shop Has Relevant Info
We have already written that the 21st century is a golden age of eCommerce. It is comfortable, useful, and profitably. For these reasons, now there are thousands of online shops for any business type. Furthermore, same to the blog section, shop frequently becomes a part of a high-grade website. It’s no secret that the more sections your online project contains the more chances you have to forget something. Surely, creating new articles or adding shining pictures is a really important factor that makes your site an up-to-date. To say more, things become crucial when it comes to eCommerce. People, who like viewing your blog, will forgive the non-availability of new content when you finally post it. Alas, we can’t say it about your shop information!
We live in a material age. Therefore, if something was related to money and it went wrong… You can lose a huge part of the audience rapidly. How can you avoid this terrifying mistake? Just check twice every piece of information. View out the prices, the links, the images, and their descriptions. Don’t hesitate to remove an item if you are not going to sell it anymore. You need to create the badges for the products that are out-of-stock.
8th Factor to Make Sure that Your Website is Up-to-Date: Update Your Contacts
You know that contacts make an important factor for any online business. Literally, that is how the prospects are able to communicate with you. For these simple reasons, you have to make sure that the information you show on the site is still actual. Haven’t you changed a phone number or email address? In case you did, update your contact information as soon as possible.
We also recommend you to present this info in 2 ways. Firstly, create a separate page for your contacts, so a visitor will see it in site’s menu. Secondly, add them to the header and the footer of your online project. To end with, a small quick contact form will be a nice idea for your project’s design. With its help, you will get all the feedback and questions from customers.
9th Factor to Make Sure that Your Website is Up-to-Date: Updates for Plugins and Engines
The next important factor you need to remember about to make sure that your website is up-to-date is updates. You do not need to view out the statistics to now that progress doesn’t stand still. It grows with a lightning-fast speed, especially when it comes to web design or website building. As a result, every platform brings its users the latest updates. For example, plugins help us to build the bigger part of a website. There are plugins for menus, languages, pages, graphics, and much more. In the end, they refine all the time. Seeing that, you should update your plugins and engines when the new versions appear.
It is not just about your design! Thanks to the updates for engines you can protect the site from hacking. These updates appear with the fixed bugs. Are you ready to update your online project? To do it, don’t forget to save a site backup. Thanks to this action, one will never lose their content.
10th Factor to Make Sure that Your Website is Up-to-Date: SEO
To finish with, we want you to follow the search engines requirements. In the end, your website should be ready to meet each of them. Create optimized content and check the code of your project if you would like it to be up-to-date. We can’t deny that it is not an easy task for a beginner. Fortunately, you can take help from the stylish SEO WordPress themes.
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Conclusion
Now the web space is full of multiple strikingly-colored websites. Their owners pay big money to get the newest web trends. The fact is that trends are everywhere. They do not surprise online visitors anymore. With it, quality is the very factor, which attracts people to your online pages. It starts with the excellence of your content and ends with the customer-friendly interface. Every pixel of your website should load properly. You have to make sure that every link works correctly and every detail will work on the small-screened devices. Modern website building requires organization, comfort, and quality. Basically, these are the steps you need to perform.
- Keep an eye on your links because all of them should be working. Also, remember about interlinking. Delete or replace the non-working elements.
- Make friends with the search engines. Actually, the popularity of your website depends on the search results. Know as much information as you can and be sure that the website meets all the recent SEO requirements.
- Always update your content! Transform this process into a habit. Upload new pictures to enrich the gallery, create new posts, and change testimonials.
- Don’t pass social media! It also needs you to add new content regularly.
- Never forget about the basis of your online project – its engines and plugins. Use the latest updates to avoid issues with the site’s work.
- Whatever your website about, check the shown information. Update contacts, location, logo, prices, shipping details, and much more. The opinion of your customers depends on this factor!
- Use Analytics to see the non-popular pages. Analyze them.
- Keep in mind that you need a user-friendly site. It should be responsive, mobile-friendly, and cross-browser compatible.
For now, these were all the 10 important factors you should think about to have an up-to-date website. Do you follow all of these recommendations? Are there any points you always forget about? We are waiting for your comments!
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