There are many different ways you can keep your website healthy and up to date. Here’s a few tips:
- Monitor competitors: Track top competitors for content strategies and ranking changes to stay ahead.
- Update keywords: User search habits evolve. Regular keyword research ensures you’re still hitting the mark.
- Fresh content: Consistency in quality content boosts engagement and keeps your site relevant.
- Refresh old content: Old content can be updated with new links or completely revamped for relevance.
- Check links: Regularly ensure all internal and external links work to maintain user trust
- Ensure responsiveness: Your site should cater to various devices, from desktops to smartphones, ensuring a seamless experience.
- Stay active on social media: Regular updates boost traffic and build audience trust.
- Speed matters: Ensure fast loads across devices, adjusting content as needed
- Optimize media: Update older media to modern standards and ensure fast load times.
- Prioritize security: Regular security checks and updates protect both your site and its users
- Update plugins: Outdated third-party plugins can hamper performance. Keep them current
- Manage backlinks: Maintain a quality backlink profile by consistently checking and updating.
- Monitor testimonials: Reviews impact user trust. Regularly check and address any negative feedback
- Regular backups: Regularly backup your site to recover quickly from any mishaps.
- Analyze performance: Use metrics, user feedback, and tests to find and address weak spots.
Website owners everywhere breathe a sigh of relief when their website is finally designed, developed, and optimized. They may look forward to high rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs), steady increases in traffic, and better conversion rates. However, they mustn’t hang up their hats just yet… It is equally important to keep their websites optimized.
If a website is kept healthy and up-to-date, business owners can look forward to maintaining or increasing their key performance indicators (KPIs). Luckily, website maintenance doesn’t have to be complicated or time-consuming; plenty of simple tips can make the task quite manageable. Find out more below!
Why Is It Important to Keep A Website Up-to-Date?
Suppose your website is currently optimized for your niche and your target audience. You are showing up on the first page of SERPs, you offer more comprehensive information than your competitors, your pages are easy to navigate and read, visitors find valuable content, and conversions are through the roof.
Now, imagine you left your website as-is for two years. Search engine algorithms have changed in little ways; your website no longer meets specific criteria to rank well on SERPs. Competitors have outranked you for certain SEO keywords and found new, relevant keywords to index for; since this is the case, your website now ranks several pages down the line. Visitors who make it to your site find your page designs outdated and unattractive, have a hard time with navigation, encounter slow loading times, and do not find any new or exciting information after all their efforts. Unfortunately, your metrics have fallen significantly.
Of course, any website owner would prefer to maintain the first scenario. The excellent news is that they can, if only they check performance, make small changes, and optimize features regularly. This way, they can ensure they stay visible and satisfy their customers.
15 Ways to Keep Your Website Healthy & Up-to-Date
1. Keep An Eye on Your Competitors
Your competitors are always close, especially if you are doing well. They will be watching your SERPs rankings and working overtime to develop ways to outrank you. Likewise, you should keep an eye on anyone ahead of or just behind you on SERPs pages. Focus on how often they are creating new content, what their content pertains to, their new keywords, and their engagement levels. It will help you stay one step ahead and make strategic moves.
2. Perform Keyword Research
Many website designers and developers conduct keyword research when they optimize web pages. Yet, keyword data continuously changes to reflect actual user searches. Since this is the case, conducting keyword research periodically is critical. Ensure your content still incorporates the keywords users enter, take advantage of trending keywords, and remove outdated or inefficient ones.
3. Create Fresh Content
If you consistently develop high-quality content, you will keep your current clients engaged, and you will be able to draw in new visitors. It also allows your website to stay on top of new or trending keywords, indexing and ranking higher for those terms.
It may be an excellent idea to develop a content calendar, scheduling when you will launch informative blog posts, upload exciting media, or create new product pages. It helps you stay on track with content and lets your audience know when to expect value.
4. Revive Old Content
When you add new content to your website, you may accumulate a relatively large archive over time. Keep your older content relevant by adding links to recent posts and providing blog navigation options.
In some cases, old content becomes outdated and insignificant. Keywords may become irrelevant, information may change, or your sentiments or insights about a particular topic may be more sophisticated. In all these instances, it is worthwhile to rewrite or update those posts.
5. Verify Links
An outstanding SEO practice is incorporating internal and external links throughout a website. However, users often encounter broken links, not-found errors, and redirects. Most users find this frustrating since they need help quickly retrieving necessary information. It damages the user experience since your website is no longer easy to use and navigate. Accordingly, website developers must verify the functionality of links on a semi-regular basis.
6. Keep Your Website Responsive
In the past, website developers simply needed to create a webpage for computers. In today’s modern world, users find and access web pages from many digital devices: laptops, tablets, e-readers, and smartphones. As such, a website needs to be optimized for these different screen sizes and navigation methods (mouse, tablet pen, or finger). Websites can constantly make changes that make experiences more pleasant for their digital device users; for instance, one of the newest ways to please clients is to create a separate app or platform for mobile phones.
7. Update the Social Media Network
Social media is not just a way to connect with others; it is a fantastic way to promote your website, pull in traffic from sustainable sources, and build trust with your audience. Accordingly, it is essential to update social media feeds. Continue to add eye-catching content, compelling captions, use platform-relevant keywords, and offer links to your website.
8. Speed Up Your Pages
Never underestimate the power of speedy web pages! Users should be able to enjoy smooth, easy page scrolling and fast-loading content. They should encounter this whether they access your website from their desktop computer or mobile device. Additionally, since website speed significantly impacts the user experience, most search engine algorithms consider it when determining SERPs ranks.
If you regularly add high-value content to your page, be aware that it may affect your page speed; for example, high-def images and embedded images are particularly burdensome. Perform speed tests monthly and take steps to lighten the load if necessary.
9. Optimize Your Media
Images and videos can affect your user experience in a massive way. Many older websites use low-definition graphics, limited by the technology available when creating them. Likewise, older versions of photos and videos are often cumbersome files. They not only load slowly, but they also bring down the entire page speed. Since this is the case, website owners should take the initiative to find or take higher-quality photos and videos and optimize them for speed.
10. Maintain Tight Security
Safety is a growing concern amongst internet users and website owners alike, so keeping tabs on your security protocols and processes is critical. Your visitors will develop trust in your website, search engines will recognize your website as secure, and you can rest assured you have everything under lock and key.
Ensure you are running vulnerability checks on a monthly basis. In this way, you can apply security patches, perform security updates, and develop bug fixes promptly. Of course, your own security is essential too. Change passwords, update firewalls and virus software, and verify user access regularly.
11. Update Third-Party Plugins
Third-party plugins may optimize your website’s appearance, functions, and features. Although you may use them to design and develop your website, they should never be left alone to do their own thing. They require updates and patches, otherwise, it can lead to website errors, poor mobile accessibility, slow page speeds, and security breaches, amongst other issues. Ensure you update these additions to keep your website healthy and performing optimally.
12. Scope Out Backlinks
High-quality backlinks are an excellent way to build brand awareness, develop credibility, obtain website traffic, and increase SERPs rankings. Yet, scoping out and securing reputable backlinks needs to be an ongoing project. It is not only about quantity but freshness; if new pages consistently pop up promoting your website, you can expect a constant stream of visitors from various sources. Likewise, running backlink checks, notifying website owners about broken links, and removing your association from low-quality websites are critical. Ultimately, these processes keep your website in high regard.
13. Scan Your Testimonials
Social credibility is everything these days. Users frequently check consumer reviews and verify trust rankings before they use a website, order a product, or download a service. Scanning your testimonials, considering them, and taking steps to resolve issues can make all the difference. Likewise, removing spam or fake reviews can be important.
14. Backup Your Data
Keeping your website healthy involves keeping a current version of your website in a secure backup. Technical mistakes and tech failures happen daily, so you want to ensure you can restore your website in the worst-case scenario. Be sure to back up your data monthly or whenever you update a webpage.
15. Run Performance Checks
It can be challenging to pinpoint issues on a website, especially if all aspects were initially optimal. Website owners can run standard metrics or statistics checks to identify if there are any concerns, ideally monthly. Likewise, they can scan performance with load and stress tests. Naturally, they can also survey visitors and customers to discover where they may improve services. Ultimately, all of these activities will help target key areas where their website needs to be improved!
Your Website’s Health is Everything
If website developers employ these fifteen tips, users can enjoy a smooth website experience every time they visit the pages. Likewise, website owners can benefit from better visibility, more traffic, and a satisfied customer basis. Be sure to perform maintenance weekly, monthly, and quarterly for the best results.
Eager to learn more about strengthening your website and improving SEO? Browse our website for more helpful information or contact us for personalized assistance.