Tag Archives: updates

Four Design Tips For Updating Content on Your Website

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If you’ve been assigned the ongoing task of maintaining a website for your company, particularly if you are using a Content Management System (CMS) like WordPress, here are a few tips that will help you keep the site looking professional.

1. Don’t Treat Your Website Like A Display Ad
Unlike a print ad, a website does not need to grab people’s attention. Users visit a website on purpose. They aren’t trying to read the comics, watch tv, or listen to music, so you don’t need flashing images or noise to draw their attention away from something else. Your website should make the visitor feel comfortable enough to stay a while.

When a user accesses your website, they want to find the information they are looking for quickly. If they begin to feel frustrated, if the site is too complicated or navigation is unclear, they’ll move on. Readability and usability are vitally important.

2. Follow the Design
A designer considers each site element for readability and success at conveying a defined message. Size, font, style, weight, color, and alignment are defined for heading, subhead, body copy, captions, links and more.

When it ‘s time for you to add new content, look at the styles that have been assigned to the different elements. Stick to those rules. Your goal is not to make the new copy jump out at the reader. In fact adding new content that doesn’t follow the overall structure looks less professional and can reflect poorly on your company.

3. Avoid All Caps
Type, above all else, must be readable. Ascenders and descenders of upper and lower case letters help our eyes to identify words. Using all capital letters makes that distinction difficult and visitors to your site are less likely to read all the information you so purposefully prepared.

4. Respond To Comments
Comments are a great way to help gauge the effectiveness of your online efforts. Demonstrate your appreciation to those visitors who left comments by responding to each one individually, answering their questions and thanking them for their business. Prompt attention to all comments is a real-life illustration of your commitment to customer service.

Five Reasons Why Website Updates Are Important

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A website is a great tool. However, even once you have your site up and running, the job is not complete.  Unlike every other form of advertising, websites are never finished. Done right, a website is a work in progress, continually being updated and improved. The websites that work best, the ones that deliver the best results, are constantly being tweaked.

1. New Beats Old
Search engines rank websites with new content higher than websites with old content. Updates should be done on a regular basis, monthly or even weekly.

2. More Frequent Indexing
Search engines send out bots to index web pages. If the bot finds your site hasn’t been updated in a month, another bot may not be sent again for two months. If it still hasn’t been updated, it may wait three months. Regular updates mean your site gets indexed more often and the your site’s contents will be searchable.

3. They Will Come
Posting new content on your website gives customers a reason to return. This can enhance your relationship with them and they may be more likely to use your services more often.

4. Know What They Want
By reviewing your web stats, you’ll learn what information your users find most appealing and where they are coming from. This will help you determine a direction for new content that can draw even more visitors.

5. Ch-ch-ch-changes
Search engines are constantly changing the way they index sites. The factors one directory considers important today may change dramatically tomorrow and every directory is different. Getting the most from your website requires on-going supervision and maintenance.

Maintaining a small website doesn’t require a huge chunk of time, it can take as little as a few hours a month. Outsourcing this task can be a good choice for those who don’t have time to do it themselves. If you’re interested in having us maintain your website, please call 518.392.0846 or email suzanne@trevellyan.biz.