When it comes to your website it’s important to realize that your site is never “done”.
We talked recently about how to manage your website once it’s launched or relaunched.
It’s important to actively manage your website so you can get the most out of it. The website really needs an owner or manager; someone that’s in charge of keeping the site updated, looking at stats, and making changes or directing changes as necessary.
Your business changes over time and your website needs to change along with it. That doesn’t always mean completely overhauling the website. It usually means making a few tweaks from time to time. This keeps your site working for you and keeping it from turning away customers.
And on that note, let’s look at some of the common things that make your website look out-of-date.
I’ve been guilty of a few of these. And I won’t name names. These are just some things to look out for that should be easy fixes if you notice one or two that apply to your website.
1. Older About Page Photos
I’m raising my hand on this one thinking that I need to update the photo of me on my business’s about page. It’s a nice photo, but it’s about three years old. My appearance has changed a little bit in the that time. I may not even realize how much I’ve changed. I know for sure there are a few more gray hairs up on my head.
It’s a little thing, but people really care about knowing who the people are behind the business. It’s good to get in the habit of making sure the content on the about page is accurate. That goes for photos, bios and more. It could even mean making sure that all the people on your about page are still with the company.
As with most things on this list, set a reminder every quarter, six months or year to review your entire site. Look at the about page and make changes as necessary. A good habit might be to redo team photos every year so they’re up-to-date.
2. Sliders, Carousels
How often do you visit a website and look at each of the slides on a slider?
You know…those things on websites that scroll through different images or photos?
They’re called sliders or sometimes carousels.
They seem like a good idea. You can add more content into a small area. And you don’t overwhelm a visitor with all kinds of content at once.
But people don’t really take the time to sit and watch the slider go round and round. It’s now kind of an outdated thing to have on your website.
These can work in some situations. I like them on retail websites like Amazon. In that case, visitors want to scroll through to see new items instead of seeing all the items at once.
3. Short Pages
It was a little more common a few years ago to have short pages. Everybody was worried about getting content above the fold. So the idea was to keep the pages short and add more pages. This meant that visitors had to read about something, click to the next item, click to the next item and it got out of hand.
You don’t want to overwhelm someone with all kinds of content at once, but today people are used to scrolling. You can give them the right amount of content on their screen and lead them further down on the page. Scrolling is better than clicking.
It’s a balance. Pages still make sense, but many small businesses today are finding that even a single page website can do just fine.
4. Copy For Outdated Products & Services
Has someone every contacted your business via your website asking for something and you think, “We don’t offer that anymore…”
It can happen sometimes especially if you don’t audit your website regularly. It’s one of those instances where your business changes and your website needs to change with it.
I see this around this time of year in Wisconsin with golf course websites. They don’t always update the site to say that the course is open when it is in fact open for business. Or they get new clubs in for the season in the pro shop, but the site still has last year’s club models.
5. Dormant Blog
I see this pretty often because my business is Ghost Blog Writers. Business owners start blogging for their website, but over time they can’t keep up. It starts with weekly posts. Then monthly. Then every other month. Before long the latest post on the blog is two years old. And that post has a snippet on the homepage with the date it was published.
If you’re going to have a blog make sure you can commit to keeping it updated. If you can’t it’s good to find someone on the team that can or find a service that can help you keep it updated.
Or if you don’t think you can do at least monthly posts then hold off on the blog until you can commit.
6. Keyword Stuffing
There are some old things in the SEO world that may I have worked that people still do. But these things don’t really work anymore. And I don’t think they ever really worked.
One thing is keyword stuffing. Like if you sell kitchen sinks on your website and you write “kitchen sinks” a hundred times on the homepage or something like that. You have descriptions that go something like, “We sell the best kitchen sinks for people that really love kitchen sinks. We have black kitchen sinks, white kitchen sinks, stainless kitchen sinks and every other kind of kitchen sink you can imagine! Make sure to check out our kitchen sinks because we have the kitchen sinks you’ll love!”
That’s not how someone selling kitchen sinks would talk in a person-to-person interaction. And that’s how I like to approach website copy or content. Act as if your site is a real salesperson talking to a potential customer. Use the language the customer is asking and don’t try to write for what you think Google wants.
Google is getting really smart. You don’t have to go overboard on the keywords.
7. Awkward Internal Linking
Building on the last one is the idea of awkward internal linking. This is when every other word on your website is a link to another page. You might link to your Services page with all kinds of words throughout a paragraph description.
If you have one page for sinks you might link every word mentioning sinks and similar keywords to that page. One link or maybe two is usually enough. Internal linking is good, but going overboard makes your site look awkward and outdated. People know you’re just trying some SEO tactic instead of trying to give them a good experience.
8. Dormant Event Calendars
Like dormant blog posts, dormant event calendars are a dead giveaway for a website that is being neglected. The person in charge of the website needs to make sure that the events are up-to-date. You could still have a section for “Past Events” or something like that. It won’t look outdated that way and you can still show visitors what they missed so they can signup and attend next time.
9. Dormant Case Studies, Work Portfolios
It’s good to commit to keeping your case studies and work portfolios updated. It’s hard to sell a potential customer on your service if your only example is from five years ago. You can add new examples to the collection and go back to what you have already and update those items so they’re fresher.
10. Pages That Only Tell Visitors To Visit Another Page
I visited a city website the other day and went to the about page. The only text on the about page was a sentence that told me to visit the History and Information page to learn more about the city.
That made me think that the About page used to have more content, but that they changed the site’s structure at some point.
The lesson here is to make sure you don’t have pages like this. If you do just delete them. And make sure you have a handle on why you have each page and if each page is necessary and helpful to visitors.
Conclusion
I’ve been guilty of a few of these in the past. I probably will be in the future. The big takeaway is to make sure that you have someone in charge of your website. They’ll be responsible for auditing the site to make sure it’s up-to-date and working to achieve your business goals. The items on this list are good indicators that your site is outdated. For the items above you can usually make some quick decisions and fixes to make your site look fresher. And that’s a good thing because people that visit your site want to know that you’re still active.
