7 Ways to Refresh a Website

According to Reboot Online SEO, there are around 1.13 billion websites on the internet as of 2024. Not all of them are as modern or as up-to-date as they should be. In fact, there are some that are decades old. While yours might not be approaching twenty, for example, it might be that it’s at least five or even ten years out of date. 

There are many disadvantages to having a website that isn’t as up-to-date or as modern as it should be, which is why you should look to refresh your website as soon as possible. But don’t worry, because there are several ways in which you can refresh your website yourself, and that’s what we’ll be detailing in today’s article. With that in mind, here are seven ways to refresh your website:

1. Give your homepage a refresh

According to UK2, a website’s homepage is the most important attribute on any website. That’s the case for many reasons. The first is that your homepage aims to attract and engage all visitors, but more importantly, it helps to bring in new users. It’s the first thing that a website visitor will see when they click on your website. 

In addition, it also encourages the website users to visit other pages on the site. It summarises the products and/or services that you have to offer, providing links to other pages that people might want to see, after seeing what you have to offer. It’s also where your unique selling points (USPs) should be displayed. 

It acts as a first impression, therefore making you stand out from your competitors. In fact, according to FastSpring, it only takes 0.05 seconds for a website visitor to forge an impression of your site and of your business. With this in mind, if your website homepage looks drab, isn’t engaging and is lacking in content, then this will instantly increase the bounce rate of your website. 

The higher the bounce rate, the more detrimental it is when it comes to the performance of your website. To keep the bounce rate to a minimum, give your homepage a complete revamp. This includes refreshing the content, choosing brighter, cleaner colours, updating your logo and making sure your USPs stand out, to name just a few things. 

2. Rejig your website’s navigation

You need to make it easier for website visitors to navigate around your website. This means ensuring there are some relevant internal links available for website visitors to click on that are nearby and easy to see. Don’t hide products and services too deep in the site structure, either. This is because, the deeper into the site it goes, the harder it’ll be for people to find and access. Make things as simple as possible when it comes to navigating around your site. Have parent pages and child pages, categorising them based on relevancy. 

For example, let’s say that you sell blinds, curtains and shutters, you should set up your three parent pages: blinds, curtains and shutters. Underneath your parent page for blinds, have child pages that are :Venetian blinds, Roman blinds, roller blinds, blackout blinds etc. The same thing goes for curtains. Under the ‘curtains’ parent page, have: blackout curtains, net curtains, lined curtains etc. It’s a simple, easy-to-use and straightforward-to-follow structure that works every single time. 

3. Revisit all of your onsite content

Website content plays an integral part in the performance of any website. It needs to be of a good standard and that includes being grammatically correct and completely lacking in spelling errors. Also, it needs to be written by a person and not a robot. This helps to add personality to your website, making sure that the tone of your website is as accurate as possible. It ensures that your website is packed full of content that is both meaningful, helpful, evergreen and engaging. 

Content written by a robot won’t give you that. In addition, if your content is lacking completely on your website, it won’t do you any favours when it comes to SEO performance and results. Therefore, there needs to be long-form content on your site that is both high-quality and has a decent word count. Making sure you’re refreshing the content on your site is an ideal, effective way of refreshing your website.

4. Consider hiring an illustrator 

You might not think that an illustrator is something that you actually need. But they can do wonders for modernising your website, as well as injecting some personality into your website. It will help to make sure your website stands out from the crowd, especially if your competitors’ sites are lacking in this area. 

Illustrators can offer more than just some pretty pictures or cartoon images. They can also play a huge part in revamping your logo or giving other aspects of your website a much-needed overhaul. Graphic design is something that we here at Kumo can offer, which is just one service on offer when you choose us for digital marketing services.  

5. Take a closer look at your data & analytics

You might be wondering why checking your data and website analytics plays such a huge part in refreshing a website. However, it’s far more significant when it comes to achieving the desired results as you might have otherwise thought. This is because Google analytics and other pieces of data and information on our websites’ performance has the ability to tell us where our shortfalls are and where we’re excelling. 

From bounce rates and website traffic to clicks and heatmaps, website data is something that will help you to improve areas of your site that aren’t performing as they should. On the other hand, it also enables us to keep other, high-performing parts of our site up to scratch. Don’t forget to keep looking into your website data if you feel like it’s not performing as well as it used to. This is a great way of refreshing your website, in more ways than one. 

6. Make basic, fundamental pieces of information ‘evergreen’

When it comes to keeping fundamental, basic information on your website, make sure it’s as evergreen as possible. If you’re unsure of what evergreen content is, we have an article that details the definition of evergreen content. In addition, we also have a guide on creating evergreen content. This information should arm you with everything you need to make sure that you’re executing excellent evergreen content that doesn’t need to be changed or updated over time. This is the beauty of evergreen content. 

Content that is evergreen doesn’t need to be updated overtime, because it doesn’t become irrelevant, inaccurate or outdated as time goes on. Instead of saying; “we have 36 years’ of experience”, which is a statement that will need to be updated every year, say instead; “we have over three decades’ of experience”. No matter if it goes into four or five decades’ of experience, it’s still factually accurate. Evergreen content on a website is time and cost-effective, so make sure it’s packed with information that doesn’t need to be regularly updated. 

7. Take a look at what your competitors are doing

One of the best ways in which to get some inspiration when it comes to refreshing your own website is to look at your competitors’ websites. There’s likely to be a mixture of standards and ages, from brand new, modern sites to websites that were developed decades ago, it’ll show you both what’s possible and what should be avoided when it comes to refreshing your website. 

Your competitors can offer you some helpful ideas and inspiration, but be sure not to actually copy anything they’re doing. From their colour scheme and imagery to the copy and their USPs, make sure your website has been refreshed with originality in mind. 

If you end up copying their website, it could land you in hot water. Instead, use it as a way to see what would work well for you and what wouldn’t. It might also depend on the industry you work in. The aesthetics of a blind shop website will be different from how a forklift website looks, for instance. Put your own stamp on it but don’t be tempted to make a carbon copy of a site you’ve seen and loved. 

Kumo has a wealth of digital marketing services available, including SEO, PPC, content creation, graphic design, website design and more. We have over two decades’ of experience behind us, so you’ll always be able to count on our expert team to propel your business into the spotlight, setting you apart from your competitors. For further information, get in touch with a member of our friendly, professional team today – we’re always happy to hear from you.