Your business website isn’t a “set it and forget it” marketing tool.
Showing your visitors fresh content every time they visit your website can entice them to visit often, not to mention it does wonders for your rankings and website traffic.
But what if you don’t have anything new to share? Is there really a point in changing all your web copy to say the same things you said before, but with different words?
Here’s the thing: a fresh website is a healthy website. In fact, Google uses “freshness factors” to help rate your content quality. All that aging content on your website could negatively impact your rankings.
Now for the good news: you don’t need to do a complete overhaul to reap the benefits of a change-up.
Take a look at our top 10 hacks we use to keep our content updated and fresh without sinking hours into it every time:
Hack #1 – Change Your Images
Images are one of the most important elements you have on your website. They can immediately set the tone, enhance your brand, and help people decide whether they want to learn more or bounce to another site.
In fact, some studies mention that compelling images garner almost twice as many views as boring, visually-lacking content.
So which images should you change?
Here’s an interesting place to start: change any images of objects to ones with real people. This study from VWO replaced a boring image with one of a person’s face and saw a 48% boost in conversions.
Other tests have garnered similar results, such as one conducted by Medalia Art.
This online art shop wanted to increase user engagement, so they switched photos of paintings with images of the artists. Conversion rate almost doubled, raising from 8.8% to an astounding 17.2%.
Hack #2 – Revise Blog Content for Improved Optimization
Can a blog post stop working? You bet it can!
Even if you had a well-performing blog post at one time, your numbers aren’t set in stone. If you notice your rankings for your blog posts slip (or never saw any benefit to begin with), a little refresh might be all you need to “fix” them.
Do a little keyword research to find where you can make improvements to your content without the guesswork or a total rewrite:
- What keywords are you already ranking for?
- Which ones are your competitors ranking for?
- Are there keywords that relate to your content that wouldn’t be too difficult for you to rank for?
Tools like Moz, HubSpot Analytics, and Ahrefs give you data-driven insights into your own website and those of your competitors so you can see exactly what you need to do to move the needle.
This way, you can continue to keep an eye on your performance and see how you’re moving up or down in search rankings.
Once you’ve determined what keywords you should be using, you can alter your web page content to include them where it makes sense.
Hack #3 – Repurpose Content
Another tactic is to take your blog post and turn it into a different piece of content for your website. For example, the content in one blog post could be transformed into an infographic, white paper, or podcast.
This can save you some brainpower in drumming up new content ideas while continuing to deliver value to your audience.
Convince and Convert uses this exact same technique to scale their content. Their famous Jay Today video segments are ultimately atomized into three separate blog posts, each with their own unique headline and copy and posted to various channels.
They also share the videos on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn, giving them plenty to talk about in each of their media outlets.
You can do the same with minimal effort. Look at the types of content you currently have on your website and see if something could also work in another format.
Hack #4 – Fix Broken Links
Does your website have any broken links? You might be surprised. Broken links can be self-inflicted or caused by the outbound pages you link to. Things like moving or removing a web page or content can contribute to broken links.
These links can damage your reputation with your audience and search algorithms alike. You should proactively seek out links that may no longer work to redirect them so that visitors who click won’t be met with disappointment.
Broken links can potentially harm your SEO. Google has stated that one or two broken links won’t impact your rankings, but the additional evidence says otherwise.
A broken link can stop a search crawler in its tracks, which means that your entire page may not be crawled. This could lead to your content not ranking to its potential and missing out on valuable website traffic.
If you have a large site, a tool like Ahrefs can perform a backlink check for you so you don’t have to do it manually. It will report any link issues so you can know where to allocate your time when exploring and fixing links.
Hack #5 – Change Your Button Text
Can one word be standing between you and higher conversions? It’s possible.
Switching up the call to action on your button text may be able to generate more leads.
This case study from Unbounce and Beem Digital changed one word in the call to action for a free trial of Unbounce. “Start Your Free Trial” changed to “Start My Free Trial” and ran for three weeks. Click through rate increased by 90%, proving that it doesn’t require major changes to make a major impact.
The goal here isn’t just to optimize the web page, but to optimize the decisions that take place on a web page. In this case, Unbounce decided to see how they could accelerate the decision-making process by changing their CTA and focusing on the ultimate goal of the web page.
Hack #6 – Remove the Dates from Your Blog Posts
A case study conducted by Shout Me Loud noticed that blog traffic significantly declined when they removed dates from blog posts, then added them back. The goal was to see how dates affected SEO, and a 40% drop in traffic and a loss of 101 keywords spoke volumes:
Blog posts are more valuable when search engines aren’t aware of how old they are.
After removing the dates, traffic climbed again and keyword ranking improved.
However, having dates on blog posts can be critical to the user experience. It’s possible to use Javascript to display a date on a blog post without search engines being able to read them.
If you’re currently showing dates on your blog posts, consider removing them and hiding the dates in Javascript to see how your rankings and traffic improve.
Hack #7 – Edit Your ‘About Us’ Page
Does anyone ever read your About Us page? Isn’t this page more self-serving than anything? The answers are Yes and No, respectively.
This page is arguably the most overlooked web page, yet data shows that it’s the second most visited page on most websites.
If you’re not maximizing the content on your About Us page, you could be missing out on revenue, growth, and important touch points with your customers.
So how can you jazz up your About Us page to the point where people will want to read it?
There are a few elements that every About page needs:
First, make sure you’ve crafted a compelling story that people will actually want to read. Use this time to connect with your customers and help them discover what your brand is about.
Also, use this page to move the conversation forward so that people will know what to do next.
This is a huge missed opportunity
for many website owners because they don’t often recognize their About Us page as being a potential marketing or selling tool.
Email service provider AWeber conducted a case study that added a form to the About page of QualityStocks, an online stock photo distributor. The result landed a 158% boost in email subscriber growth.
Don’t be afraid to try something new. Given this page is usually the second-most popular, adding a call to action on your About page is simply smart business.
Hack #8 – Proofread Existing Content
This website spring cleaning hack could be more important than you realize.
We all get in a hurry at times and may accidentally hit the Publish button before proofreading. (It’s even worse when some mistakes might not be known until a reader points it out in a comment thread.)
Google has stated that spelling and grammar errors don’t work against you in rankings. However, they’ve also noted that top-ranking sites tend to have flawless content.
Think of it as a trust signal. Websites that are riddled with spelling errors or poor mechanics aren’t likely to be trusted by audiences. It’s not a hard connection to make, which means you should take care to ensure your content is flawless at all times.
Hack #9 – Add New Testimonials or Reviews
It’s no secret that reviews and testimonials can impact your conversions. Over 90% of internet users read online reviews to make an informed purchasing decision.
The key to getting them to work for you is to have lots of them that speak positively about your abilities.
Data shows that products with 50 or more reviews can see up to a 4.6% boost in conversions. Product-specific reviews can also see a 10%-20% jump in search traffic.
While it’s frowned upon to forge testimonials or pay for reviews, it’s completely okay to ask your customers to leave a review or hand over a testimonial for you to post on your website.
Research shows that 97% of respondents say an online review or testimonial influenced their decision to purchase. If you don’t already have testimonials posted on your website, start adding some. If you already have some, add more.
This hack is too easy and too effective not to use.
Hack #10 – Update Your Forms
Are your forms as effective as they should be? It’s not just about capturing information and sending a confirmation email. Forms need to be carefully designed and strategised to make the maximum impact.
Things like layout, position on the page, the number of fields, color, and other elements can affect how many people are willing to fill out the form.
Also, the information you request should be carefully considered, even when it comes to seemingly basic stuff. For example, this study from ClickTale shows that form abandonment dropped from 39% to just 4% after they made the phone number field optional.
A few simple tweaks might be all you need to see more engagement with your forms.
There are myriad ways you can optimize your forms for better conversion rates, so take some time to see if you can make some improvements to boost their effectiveness.
Conclusion
Updating your website often can seem like a fruitless hassle, but it doesn’t have to be. Even a few small tweaks here and there can be enough to keep things fresh and inviting for your visitors.
But most importantly, it shows you’re continually invested in your website’s success, and visitors and algorithms alike will notice.
About the Author – Benjamin Shepardson is the founder of NoStop.net, a Key West-based content agency specializing in delivering personalized experiences. With an extensive digital career dating back to before social media and WordPress, Ben personally works with clients to craft a content strategy that will scale and grow their business. Connect with him on LinkedIn.