How to redo your website without getting a whole new website.
So you have a website that’s not helping your business much but you don’t have the money to totally redo it yet. Did you know the typical life expectancy of a website is 2 years? Most of us can’t afford to get a new website every 2 years. So here are some things you can do today to give your website a makeover, even if it’s 10 years old.
1) Redo the optin/free gift. Is it still relevant to today’s client? When is the last time someone signed up? Is it in the sidebar, top right? Try putting it just below the header and stretch it the width of the page.
2) Replace your clickable email address and phone numbers. In the old days we thought we had to have every way we can be contacted on our websites or we’d lose business. This may or may not have been true back then, but it’s not true now. Yes, it’s good to have a few ways to be contacted but do you really want to be tracked down?
Wherever you have a phone number, replace it with an online scheduler. And wherever you have a clickable email link, you can replace it with a link to your contact form. Now more than ever you need to protect your contact info. But also, you are probably busier than ever and contact forms and online schedulers help you create time boundaries.
3) 2005 called and they want their sidebars back. Nothing says “dated” like a boxy sidebar. Some websites do use sidebars nowadays but on an old website, the width and things on it scream “dated”. Most older websites are thin to begin with and the old sidebar takes up valuable real estate.
4) Cull the information on the home page. In the early days we put a lot of information on the home page for SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Can you condense that information with more pictures and sub-headlines and less words?
5) Redo your fonts. And most likely, make them larger – to about 16px or 18px depending on the font. Google has some great free fonts that you can use and that are already installed on most computers. https://fonts.google.com/
6) Replace your slideshow with an updated static image. Nobody reads them anyway.
7) Take any info about you and move it to the About Me page. Most of us have already done that but there are a few stragglers out there who still have a bit of your bio on the home page.
I hope some of these tips help you to freshen up your website until you are able to have it redone.