You have six seconds to convince a website visitor that yours is the website they’re looking for, before they hit that back button. For this reason, keeping your website up-to-date isn’t just a choice, it’s a necessity.
Is it time to update your Home Care agency website? Read on to find out!
What is a Website Refresh?
Your business changes as it grows. Your Home Care agency website is no different. Ensure your website still reflects the business you represent now, even if it’s changed over time.
Websites will become outdated over time. The design that was popular a couple of years ago may seem outdated now (remember keyword clouds?) To stay competitive, it needs to be refreshed.
Does Your Website Need to Be Refreshed?
The most difficult part of updating an older website is knowing when it’s time. There are, however, some signs it’s time.
- Your site no longer looks appealing
- Low conversion rates
- There is nothing exciting or interesting on your website
- Poor or no communication with visitors to the website
- The lead flow isn’t as good as it used to be
- High bounce rates
If any of these look familiar to you, it might be time to make a few small updates, or redesign your website entirely.
7 Ways to Keep Your Home Care Website Fresh
1. The Basics
First, let’s take a look at the basics. By using modern fonts to revamp the overall appearance of your website, you can drastically update its overall appearance. Changing just a few small details can have a profound effect on transforming an old site into something new and impressive. You can use Google fonts for free and find many options there.
2. Consider redesigning your website – when your site requires more than the basics
The identity of your business is strongly influenced by your website. How your website looks will have a major impact on how it makes your visitors feel when they land there. What will their first impression be? Can they see themselves doing business with you? Outdated images and stock photos aren’t beneficial at all for your marketing efforts.
Layout, fonts, colors, and many other factors contribute to your brand’s identity. Identify which sections of your website are outdated and which parts need to be updated.
- Use a mix of professional images of you and your staff, and some high quality stock images to replace outdated ones.
- Choose a clean, simple font. It will make your website appear sleek and modern.
- Changing the color palette of your website can also improve the experience of your visitors.
3. Boost Your Communication
As we said earlier, you have less than six seconds to grab your visitors’ attention and keep them on your website. So it’s no surprise that you have limited time to make your point.
No matter what you sell, customers are concerned about how you can help them solve a problem. Whatever you say, it’s always about them. You want your visitors to be able to find the content they’re looking for without having to click all over your site to find it.
As you plan, be sure to integrate a variety of relevant and compelling CTAs. Your visitors aren’t mind readers, so you need to tell them how they take the next step. Visitors can take action through various CTAs, including:
- “Call Now”
- “Book Your Appointment Today”
- “Connect with us Today”
- “Get your free Home Care assessment today”
You should be sure to design your CTAs well, place them strategically, and make sure they are easy to understand. Make sure that your CTA’s contrast well with your design and don’t blend in with your content. CTAs that look like buttons are most effective.
Additionally, your website should have an option for visitors to contact you directly through chat or SMS. If you’re not using chat to engage with customers, you’re missing an opportunity – and new business. In a recent study, 90% of people prefer to communicate with a business via chat or text.
4. Enhance the user experience
Your website should be designed so customers can navigate it quickly. Easy navigation will draw more visitors to your site. Changing just a few things in your menu, and checking that your links work can make an enormous difference.
- Your website’s navigation is made up of links connecting its pages. Analyze your website pages carefully to make sure they are still relevant and organized.
- Review links. Check that they don’t lead to 404 (Page Not Found) errors. This makes your website appear unmaintained and sloppy. Review all the links on your site, both internal and external, and essure they lead your visitors to your desired destination.
5. Analyze Your Website Content – And See Where You Stand
Refreshing a website isn’t just about looks. The information on your site must be current. Make sure the information you present to your visitors is valid, helpful, and readable. How can you determine whether your content is fresh, high-quality, and up-to-date? Conduct a content audit.
During a content audit, the aim is to determine which links get indexed by search engines, which need to be updated, and which no longer exist. We’ve provided a great guide to conducting a content audit here: Conducting a Content Audit
6. Competitor Analysis
You should examine how your competitors’ sites can be improved while assessing what can be improved on yours. Is their website being updated with anything new that is working? Does their website perform better than yours in terms of responsiveness?
Along with how your competitors’ websites look, you should also check out which websites link to them. Could you get links from the same websites, or links from websites with higher search engine rankings? This is authority backlinking 101 & can have a significant impact on your ranking.
7. Ensure applications are up-to-date
Ensure that all Web apps are working properly. You must adapt your technology so that it can keep pace with your businesses growth.
This typically includes testing and debugging software, enhancing technology and site functionality, updating and maintaining security protocols, maintaining new browser versions, creating and maintaining 3rd party integrations, and more. Maintenance of your website’s modules, code, plugins and integrations is essential to prevent issues from occurring.
Honorable Mention: A mobile-friendly website
This is a no-brainer, but smartphones are the most popular platform for accessing the web. Many people never use anything other than their phones, so it would be an understatement to say mobile responsiveness is important.
Plus, Google favors mobile web-optimized websites in its search rankings – and penalizes those that aren’t.
In conclusion, keep it simple. Think marathon, not a race.
As with any renovation, you can go as far as you’d like with a website refresh. Although we’ve covered many small changes you can make to your website, some will have a much greater impact than others. The end result should not be underestimated, however.
What’s next? Get started by evaluating your needs and devising a plan. Now is the time to act!
For a complementary Home Care Website assessment, schedule a strategy session with us today!