If you count on your website to help you convert other businesses to using your products or services, you probably already know how important it is to keep your website updated continuously. You may, however, not know how to update your website. Following this advice can help you get yours updated, helping you to meet your website goals better.

Review Your Analytics

Open your Google Analytics. Look to see the last time that Google crawled your website. If you find that your website is blocked from Google crawling it, then start by making sure that your sitemap has been uploaded and received by Google. If it has, request Google to crawl your site by using Google’s Webmaster Tools.

If your site has been found but is blocked, ensure that you have not accidentally blocked it with a robot.txt code. Furthermore, you should ensure that Google can find and read your sitemap. The most common reason that Google cannot use your sitemap is an indexing issue, so be sure that you fix those issues and resubmit your site.

You should also correct any coding problems that Google has identified. These will be identified with a number. Fixing these issues helps Google crawl your site better. You can use the Webmaster Tools to identify the problem and make sure that you have corrected the problem without having created new ones.

Update Outdated Content

The next area that you should concentrate on is your content. The chances are strong that if you have not updated your content recently, you have things on your website that are no longer true or were wrong in the beginning.

While you are updating your content, keep three factors in mind. You want to prove that you have the expertise to make any claims that you have made and that data support your claims. If you do not already have one, create an “about us” page showing your authority in an area. You do not have to have a college degree in a field to be an authority if you can show that you have gained the necessary knowledge through life experiences.

Secondly, the content on your website needs to be authoritative. Make sure that you stuck with the topic of your website in every post. The more content that you have covered related to your website’s topic, the better. Therefore, get out your keyword research tool and see what subjects you have covered and which ones you still need to cover.

Finally, the content on your website should be trustworthy. Primarily if your website deals with lifestyles or money, then get security certificates signed showcasing that you have encrypted all secure data. When possible, use a plugin to link to reviews on other sites so that they appear on your website. Ensure that your contact information appears prominently on each page. Users should be able to get to your most essential policies in two or fewer clicks.

Return to your Google Analytics and see which pages have high bounce rates. Then, see if you can determine why and create a new page that will lower the rate.

Check Your Links

The next step to updating your website is to check your inbound and outbound links. Start by using a link checker to make sure that you have no outbound links that are broken. If you do, find a suitable replacement.

Then, look at the domain authority of each site where you have a link pointing. You want to ensure that you do not have any links pointing to spammy sites. Again, if you find any, replace it with an excellent website. Often spying on your top competitors allows you to see what sites they are linking to and connect to those sites.

You should also look to see who is linking to your site. If you find that questionable sites link to your content, write an email asking that the webmaster remove the link to your content. If that does not work, you can disavow the link using the disavow tool in your Google Search Console.

Test Your Website

Starting in July 2019, Google began crawling new mobile websites first, and slowly rolled it out to all websites. Therefore, you need to make sure that you have a responsive website that displays correctly across multiple devices. Consequently, you should consider if:

• The site displays correctly across various devices and browsers
• Your most crucial page information displays prominently
• Your website loads quickly
• Each page loads the most important information first
• You have compressed all images and large files
• Your most essential items display above the fold
• Your navigational hierarchy is easy to see and click

Review Call-to-actions

Your call-to-actions should appear prominently on every page, and each page should have one call-to-action that is above the fold. Your call-to-actions should show the other company what is in it for them if they comply with your request.
Think about objections that the other company may have about hitting your call-to-action button and use wording to overcome those objections. Use words that encourage officials at the other company to take the action that you want them to take. You should always be testing your call-to-actions to see which one performs best for you.

There are many ways that you can update your website. Starting with these five will help clear the clutter and  prepare you for the future. Keep an eye on your Google Analytics and watch out for upward trends that will reassure that you are moving in the right direction

Contact the team at GrabSome if you are interested in learning more about optimizing your website, we are happy to help!