website upgrade

10 Things You Simply Have To Include In Your Website Upgrade

Website Tips and Tricks

You’re finally biting the bullet.

You’re upgrading your website.

The old one served you well, but it was outdated and overdue for a revamp.

Re-doing your website is exciting. It’s an opportunity to provide visitors with faster speeds and great new features.

What are some of the most important things to consider as you build your new site? Here are 10 things you simply have to include in your website upgrade.

Responsive Design

More web traffic is now coming from mobile devices than desktop.

Potentially half your audience will be looking at your site on their phones. You need to make sure your new website is optimized for mobile.

The best way to do that is through responsive design. Rather than having separate mobile and desktop sites, responsive design allows you to have one set of code. The web elements stay the same but are re-sized and re-arranged depending on a device’s screen size.

Responsive design allows you to streamline the user experience regardless of how visitors are viewing your site. Make sure your website upgrade is done through responsive design.

Blogs and Content

Content marketing is huge for online companies these days. Pumping out high-quality content gives you many benefits.

Blogging is great for SEO. Blogs allow you to show your authority on a particular topic. Great content will tell search engines that you deserve to have a high ranking.

Blogs give people reasons to come to your website other than just buying things. You can provide news, tips, instructions, and stories that give readers something of value before they make a purchase.

If you aren’t writing blogs on your website, you need to start!

Intuitive Navigation

Navigating on a website is a huge part of the user experience.

Use your site upgrade to reorganize your pages and navigation system. Make sure you have the most important content in your main navigation bar, with easy-to-find drop-down menus for more specific pages.

Visitors often come to your site looking for something specific. Make it easy for them to find what they need.

Breadcrumbs

Have you ever been on an e-commerce site and noticed something like this on your webpage?

Home > Products > Men’s Clothing > T-Shirts

This is called a breadcrumb. Named after the tale of Hansel and Gretel, breadcrumbs form a trail to help show where you are on a site.

Breadcrumbs are a small addition, but they can greatly improve the user experience by providing context and helping navigation.

Breadcrumbs are also SEO boosters. They help search algorithms run through your site in a logical way. This can boost your result page ranking.

If you’re upgrading your site, make sure the new build enables breadcrumbs.

Reviews and Testimonials

No matter how much advertising you do or how great your marketing is, potential customers will always be skeptical.

If they haven’t bought from you before, they have no personal experience to judge your quality and base their decisions on.

In the absence of their own experience, potential customers often turn to online reviews. In fact, 82% of Americans say they often check online reviews before making a purchase.

You can make this task easier for your guests and feature reviews and testimonials on your website.

Gather some statements from your top clients and share them. You can also make a review and rating system built right on your site. It may also be wise to link to or embed reviews from third-party review services, such as Yelp or the Better Business Bureau.

Leverage your past great service to bring in new clients and customers.

Client List and Past Projects

If your business is an agency or otherwise frequently works with clients, take advantage of your relationship on your website.

Listing the clients you work with functions a lot like online reviews. It provides a sort of third-party verification of what you do.

A visitor to your website may not be familiar with your company. But if you work with some bigger clients, the visitor may have heard of them.

If they like and trust your client, they’ll think brands they work with are likely trustworthy as well. You’ll have a better reputation just based on association.

It’s also a good idea to list past projects and campaigns. Maybe visitors saw the commercial your advertisement agency made or the building your construction company built. Even if they don’t know your name, they might be familiar with your work.

Sharing what you’ve done and who you’ve worked with is a great way to show your qualifications. Make sure there’s a spot on your new website to do this.

Vital Business Information

This may seem obvious, but your website should tell people about your business in an easily accessible way.

Does your current site have a contact info page or an “About Us” page? If not, you need to include them as part of your website upgrade.

Many websites have this information somewhere on the site, but it can be hidden or hard to get to. Your business information should have a prominent place in your main navigation.

Fast and Secure Servers

A website upgrade doesn’t stop at the front-of-house design.

If you’re redesigning your site, it’s a perfect opportunity to reevaluate your hosting company.

Check your current site for load speeds. If your pages take more than three seconds to load, you risk losing impatient customers. Servers aren’t the only factors in load speed, but a better web host can help.

You should also check the security credentials of your web host. If there has been a trend of breaches, it’s time to take steps to improve the secureness of your site — especially if you deal with online transactions.

Your site is getting a fresh start. Take the opportunity to revamp your backend, too.

Great Photos

Your website upgrade will have a lot to do with the curb appeal.

A good-looking site is better than an ugly site.

Photos will play a big role in this. Not only will they give visitors something they look at, but they can portray personality and messages in ways words cannot.

Invest in professional photography to get some amazing photos to add to your site. Just make sure they’re formatted and optimized for the web, or it could slow down your site.

Social Media Integration

Your company is likely present in many different spaces on the internet. It’s smart to integrate all those channels together.

Embedding social media icons to follow your profiles or share your content is a must-have for your new site.

The social media networks have made it easy to incorporate your accounts onto your webpage, so there’s no reason you shouldn’t include them.

More Tips For Your Website Upgrade

Revamping your website is a big task. It can take a lot of work, but adding new features and trimming the fat can pay huge dividends.

For more tips on how to upgrade your website, visit SiteUptime’s blog.