As a rule of thumb, it’s almost always going to more cost-effective to keep the car you have now in good working order than it is to buy a new one. Not only is good auto maintenance a lot less expensive than a hefty down payment, but the thrill you get from a shiny finish and that new car smell doesn’t always last as long as the resulting payments do.
A similar dynamic sometimes plays out with regards to a new website design. While there certainly are times when it makes sense to begin a new layout from the ground up – particularly when doing so will improve your ROI over time – there are often simpler steps you can take to get more value from your existing site. Often, these are cheaper, faster, and just as effective.
So, whether you need to put off a complete website redesign for a while, or are just looking for a few things you can do to get better results from the web presence you have, we want to help. Here are a handful of ways you can make your used business website run like new…
Get a Better Web Hosting Package
If your website seems slow, or is offline quite often, your hosting package might be to blame. A lot of small businesses use shared hosting plans that keep their site stored on small, crowded servers. Upgrade to a faster plan and you’ll enjoy quicker loading speeds, more reliability, and better protection from hackers.
Update Your CMS and Plugins
Using outdated content management software (like an old version of WordPress, for example) causes all kinds of problems. For one thing, it can leave you vulnerable to cyber attacks. For another, it might mean that different pieces of software installed on your site aren’t going to work together.
Study the Flow of Traffic Through Your Website
Sometimes, the easiest way to discover bottlenecks and performance problems within a website is simply by digging into the relevant analytics. If potential customers are continually leaving your site on the same page, that might be a sign something is going wrong. Or, you might be leaving visitors without a key piece of information they’re looking for.
Clean up Navigation and Content
The text, photos, and other visuals you have on your website can become outdated pretty quickly. By cleaning these things up, you can make your content seem a lot fresher. Additionally, you should make sure your navigation menus don’t point at any pages or items that no longer exist or work correctly.
Get a Website Audit
A website audit is a simple process where a professional design team looks for the kinds of issues we’ve already discussed, along with a review of your search engine positioning, underlying HTML code, and other technical factors. It’s a way to get a quick checkup for your website to see if anything has gone wrong or can be improved with little time or expense.
Websites are always getting better, faster, and more versatile. So, if yours feels truly dated, it might be worth getting a quote on a brand-new layout. In the meantime, though, we hope you’ll put these tips to good use. You might be surprised at just how much better your site will run after a few quick-and-easy improvements.