In the digital age, a website is one of the most important aspects for any company, even surpassing the need for a brick and mortar building to show credibility. Why? When customers need to find contact information, they search online. When potential customers want to learn more about products and services, they scroll through websites.
Creating a website that leaves an impact on a customer through the user experience (and just as importantly, aids in organic search and SEO), is all about the content. Plus, having a higher ranking means more traffic to the website, which is something every business should strive to achieve.
Complete a Competitive Analysis
Before updating any website content, it is important to have a plan. Starting without a plan can make the process ineffective and more time consuming. First, list content that needs to be updated or topics to add. A good place to start brainstorming is by looking at a competitor’s website. Read their blogs and check out their products or services. What industry trends are they discussing? Do they have interactive media, such as videos on their site?
By identifying what they are doing, how they are positioning and what their messaging is, differentiators can be identified to reinforce in the new content. Plus, this research can also help increase SEO rankings by helping to outline keywords to target.
Check SEO Rankings
Talking about SEO, it is important to know exactly where the company’s website ranks when updating the website copy. One way to do this is to use SEO tools which can track technical SEO, keyword rankings, content optimization and much more. GRIT recommends using tools like SEMrush and GTmetrix to get reports on where your site is doing well and where it could improve. Some factors to consider when updating your SEO content include:
- Keywords: Using keywords relevant to the industry targeted will help boost the SEO score. Remember, it is important to use keywords in headings, throughout the copy and in meta descriptions on the site.
- Page Speed: If the website takes forever to load, not only is it frustrating for users, but it can harm SEO scores. Determine the site’s page speed score and the steps needed (i.e. decrease image size and optimize) to correct.
- Broken Links: Are there broken links on the website? If so, it could also impact the SEO score. It is important to make sure all the links on the website work properly and that old links are redirected.
This is just a short list of the factors that can impact SEO. Need help determining next steps to help SEO? Reach out to GRIT’s digital team today for a FREE website performance report.
Adding Multimedia Content
In today’s technological world, videos, animations and images get the most attention and have the highest levels of engagement. In fact, according to Cisco, “by 2022, online videos will make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic – 15 times higher than it was in 2017”.
When updating a website’s content, consider turning some old blogs into videos. Plus, if there is a lengthy blog post, break it up for the reader by adding images or animations that support the topic. Not only does adding multimedia elements create a better user experience, but it can help boost Google rankings.
Videos and images encourage visitors to stay on the page longer and Google likes websites that have longer visitor sessions because it shows them there is something on the site people are interested in, which as a result, can help boost rankings.
One final tip – remember to compress images and embed videos from YouTube or Vimeo. Using a website as a hosting platform for these items can slow it down and end up hurting the SEO score.
We are here to help your business succeed! For more tips and tricks on how to update your website content or to discuss any of these items in further detail and request a FREE website performance report, connect with us today! Our team of digital experts can help take your website to the next level.