By Most of us are well into new year unless you’re just about to celebrate Chinese New Year! The change of year always reminds us of things that we didn’t do over the past year so maybe now is a good time to think about whether you need to update your website, or even consider a complete makeover. Here are some ideas you may want to consider when renovating your EverWeb built website:
- Change the Copyright Date
- New Year, New Look?
- Use New EverWeb Features
- Check Your Content
- Put Mobile First
- Review and Update Your SEO
- Secure Your Site
You, your company or organization probably own the work that is your website. Always update your website’s copyright at the start of each year. Remember to use the Copyright symbol (©) and assign the copyright to the person, or organization, who owns the rights e.g. John Doe © 2018 or Acme Inc, © 2018.
A new year may inspire you to update the look of your site. Often some small changes can make a big difference. For example, if you have used EverWeb’s buttons for social media on your website e.g. Facebook, Google+ Pinterest etc., you’ll probably know that they’re beginning to look a bit outdated. So why not give them a makeover by replacing them with the new buttons that were introduced with EverWeb 2.6. The new buttons have a contemporary look and are scaleable so you can now easily size them to your liking. When using the new buttons, you’ll have to replace the old ones, so make sure that you make a note of any settings your buttons use in the Metrics Inspector such as ‘Always on Top’ and ‘Fixed Position’.
You probably use buttons in your website’s Master Page(s). This is the ideal place to find other areas such as logos, background colours, images etc. that can be easily freshened up without having to invest alot of time and effort making wholesale changes to your site.
Website design trends for 2018 still favour bold colors and creative fonts. Flat design is still popular, but has morphed into a more 3D aesthetic with overstated gradients and some shadowing allowed, providing accents to web page giving them more depth than the 2D flat design approach of a couple of years ago. Asymmetric design is predicted to be more popular this year as well as animation. Mobile first is also still a key aspect in the design equation.
Whenever EverWeb gets an update, it’s always worthwhile considering if any of the new, or updated, features introduced can benefit your website. One of the standout features of real use is the Contact Form Advanced widget which now has the power to create lists in a number of different ways, fill in text fields and much more. It’s a widget that keeps on adding new features. The widget can be used in many different ways giving you a compact way of asking your visitors questions without needing long explanations.
New features, e.g. Scroll Position, may mean that you no longer need to rely on existing widgets or coding, therefore simplifying your work and saving time and effort in the process.
The other major feature to consider if your website has been somewhat neglected is introducing a blog. Good blogging content is also good for your SEO as Google and other search engine vendors prefer original, quality content. Having up to date quality content also helps retain visitors and encourages you to invest more in your website and keep it regularly refreshed.
Whilst having a blog sounds like a good idea, it’s also worth considering the investment in time and effort that it entails. Before you start, think about frequency of updating the blog, e.g. once a month, twice a month, weekly etc. Set an update frequency that’s manageable. Also plan ahead regarding what you are going to blog about as this will help you plan in a advance and be less stressed if you are blogging to a deadline.
Nothing tells you more that a website has been neglected than out of date content. If you have a site that lists events that are years old, or has a long forgotten blog, now is the time to get up to date. How about setting up a regular update schedule for your website so stays fresh and up to date? New, quality content is alway good for attracting new visitors, retaining existing visitors and recapturing those who have stopped looking at your site. It’s also going to be good for your SEO!
When checking your content, also think of your SEO, e.g. replace page titles and section headings with the Heading Tags Widget instead. Remember to only use the ‘h1’ tag once on each page (e.g. the page title), use ‘h2’ for all your sections on the page and ‘h3’ tags for sub-sections.
Your website’s images may also benefit from an update too, so don’t forget to use Alt Text both on your regular pages and for images used in your blog.
Over the last few years, mobile sites have come to the fore. It’s often suggested that you should create your mobile site first before your desktop site. In reality, both are important especially with larger mobile phones and tablets being more popular. The type of website that seems to be less needed is one specifically targeted at tablets. So, when developing your desktop site, make sure it’s good to go for tablet users as well.
When renovating your website, put the mobile pages first. With EverWeb version 2.6 you now have Scroll Position which makes mobile page navigation easy to set up. You can now create longform pages that are easily scrollable. Having fewer, but longer, pages is better for mobile users and also means that you have fewer pages to maintain.
When revamping your website, revisit check your SEO. Over time your website content may have changed as your business, or project, changes. You may find that your SEO now doesn’t match your content, or your target market anymore. So now is a good time to look at the Page Details section of the Inspector Window for each page of your website and update it appropriately.
To boost your SEO even further, add Language Localization in as well, either on a global level, in Site Publishing Settings, or at a local level in the ‘Language Localization’ section of the Page Details section of the Inspector Window.
EverWeb introduced Site Shield Addon last year so that your website can be data encrypted from end to end. If you have an EverWeb+Hosting account of 10GB or more, it’s also free! It’s highly recommended that you keep your website data secure. All you need to do is tick the HTTPS Secure Website checkbox in Site Publishing Settings then publish your entire website. If you have a 2GB Account you can purchase this feature in your EverWeb Client Area.
Renovating your website can be done simply, quickly and easily if you keep up to date with EverWeb’s new and updated features. If you look at your website and decide that a more radical update is needed, why not get inspired with updating your site with a new look for 2018!
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