How to keep a website tidy – 5 tips that will also help your SEO
Creating and designing a website is very different to running it. While the website design process can be an arduous task in itself, actually maintaining your site can become a laborious challenge if neglected. Once your site is launched, a whole new set of jobs comes to hand.
It doesn’t take long for a website to appear dated. Broken links, sold-out products, warped images and bad SEO habits can creep into even the best sites. Of course, it’s not easy to stay on top of everything, especially if you’re focused on running your actual business.
The problem is, when your website starts getting a little frayed around the edges customers swiftly pick up on it. If you’ve still got warnings about being in the coronavirus tier system, or your lead blog post references Theresa May as prime minister, then you need to get working.
Customers and readers simply don’t like dated sites – and they especially dislike messy ones. In fact, Stanford research has found 75% of users base a company’s credibility on its website design.
But tidying your website doesn’t have to be difficult. In fact, keeping on top of the niggling issues that surface on any site is not only a productive use of your time, but is also a way of enhancing your SEO and brand respectability.
Three reasons to keep your website tidy
Of course there are plenty of reasons to keep your website tidy. Here are three to get you started…
Readers respect it more
Imagine your website is your house. You know every aspect of it, how it works, what’s good and what’s bad about it. But, like a house, you become blind to the mess that accumulates over time. You perhaps don’t realise the skirting boards need dusting, files are mounting up in a corner of the living room, and the radiators haven’t been bled in four years.
When a visitor comes round they see all the clutter and mess, they step over the piles of bills and magazine subscriptions scattered across the floor, they realise it’s chilly because the heating isn’t working properly.
This is the same when someone enters your untidy website. The stuff you’re blind to – the weirdly stretched images, the broken links and the Error 404 pages – are in full view of new readers or customers.
If the site is too messy then readers quickly lose trust in it. Why would you buy a product from a company who can’t even sort out their glitches? And so they click away.
Tidying your site means readers aren’t distracted by mess and can instead focus on buying your product or reading your killer blog.
2. Website refreshes are good for SEO
Search Engine Optimisation is the practice of polishing your website so that it ranks highly on Google (other search engines are available, but barely used!). It’s important to be at the top of search lists in order to attract customers and readers.
Even basic SEO can help improve your website's reach and performance, and refreshing your website is part of this.
Regularly updating pieces, even if it’s simply adding further links, a correction or an update, can greatly improve site ranking. Read our guide on how to improve your website SEO in 5 minutes for more SEO tips and advice.
3. Website organisation drives greater productivity
Let’s forget about the customer for a second. Organising your website so it runs more smoothly and looks appealing to readers won’t only keep eyeballs on your pages, but gives you the freedom to do other tasks. Setting aside just five minutes a week to check through your site with a little content or SEO audit is enough to stay on top of glitches and tweaks.
Like all things in life, if we set routines then we become more productive. So find a space in your calendar – even if it’s just a few minutes each week – to dedicate to assessing your website and seeing what needs changing.
Once you’ve done that you can focus on the things that are really important to you and your business.
How to keep a website tidy
So, now you know the importance of keeping a website tidy, it’s time to actually do it. This isn’t about conducting a full web overhaul. You don’t need to be deleting entire sections, creating fresh branches of your site or totally redesigning your brand.
Instead, take a few minutes to make these small changes to help keep things in order…
Dead pages
Just delete them. Google doesn’t like dead pages that have been neglected for years, while readers quickly see if you’ve a page that is outdated. If a page isn’t useful – say, for example, you have info on car parking facilities for an event staged by your company in 2017 – then get rid of it. Otherwise there is a risk it can drag down your Google rankings, as well as providing misleading information for future readers.
2. Do keyword research
Are your static pages, blogs, product descriptions or articles still hitting the right keywords? Fresh terms and phrases are coined all the time, while other previously high-volume keywords dwindle over time. So make sure your keywords are up to date and represent your product. If you sell the best mops and cleaning equipment in Brighton, research the keywords people are Googling around this subject.
And then… change your keywords, headings, even page titles. You can easily do keyword research via Google Trends, while here at Short Story we can provide a more defined keyword strategy to target exactly the right customers.
3. Update publish dates
If your website provider has the capacity then update the publish dates on your blogs and articles. This is a really great way to making your content appear fresh and informed – and people are much more likely to stick around on a site that has recent content, compared to one that last published an article in 2014.
Once you’ve done that, check out the piece itself and consider if you need to change anything within it. Are there fresh trends you should include, or perhaps new research that would better inform your piece? Have your prices increased? There’s no harm in explaining at the bottom of the page that you’ve since updated it.
4. Image audit
Your website images and fonts act as a shop window for readers and customers. Like a shop window, if the customer doesn’t like what they see, they’ll move on. So, if your site instantly looks unprofessional then customers will just click away.
The big issue for images is they can break or become pixelated over time, or simply look dated as camera technology and styles move on. Fonts also come in and out of vogue.
So, take a step back and look at your images and fonts from the perspective of someone seeing them for the first time. Are they sharp enough? Do they represent your product? Perhaps, in the case of images, they’re broken.
Once you’ve done an image audit then work out how you’re going to replace broken and poor quality pictures. You can use various free image sites like pexels, shoot your own images or perhaps employ a local photographer for the day to take fresh shots of your product.
5. Compare to mobile
This is perhaps the most overlooked aspect of web design when it comes to creating, styling and running your own site. While we practically all create and run websites on desktop, the majority of people looking at our sites are doing so via smartphones and tablets. You therefore need to ensure that your savvy desktop content is just as clean on a portrait mobile screen.
This isn’t easy but it’s definitely worth assessing your site via a phone or tablet – or if your site back-end has a ‘view as mobile’ setting then use that. You’ll quickly notice if your site looks badly ordered on handheld devices, and you can then address those issues.
The next step
Getting into these editorial habits will greatly improve not only the look of your website, but also its SEO efficiency.
But if you would like:
Further advice on keeping a website tidy
Someone to take over your website management
More written content such as news, blog posts and newsletters
…then get in touch with us today!
Here at Short Story we work with all sorts of clients to help develop online strategies and improve websites. We’re dedicated to online storytelling and are passionate about growing brands alongside us. So feel free to speak to us today and discover how we can help.
Photo by Jan Kopřiva on Unsplash