How often, and How Can I Tell When My Website Needs Updating?

So, you have a website for your business, or maybe even a personal one.
You’ve finally finished the major task that is creating a brilliant website to represent you or your business, and you finally hit “publish”.
Finally, the site is live, and you don’t have to touch it again.

Or do you?

You may start to notice things that need changing… small things like wording or even whole page layouts.

Is it time for an update?

It’s typically best practice to regularly update your site whenever the need arises and depending on your industry, a full website redesign may be needed every 2-3 years.

7 Signs it's Time to Update your Website:

1. Your website is missing information
2. Your brand has evolved
3. You aren't showing off your site - you're not excited to show it off!
4. It's not optimised for mobile or tablets
5. You're not getting as much traffic as you like
6. It's not properly reflecting your brand and services anymore
7. Your rank on Google.

Use this list to regularly check your website, if one or more of these crop up, it may be time to look at updating your website. 

How to Always Insure Your Website is Up to Date:

• Visitors - keep an eye on visitors and unique visitors.
• Guage how people are responding to newly updated content on your site and measure how people are finding it via organic search
• Time on site - This number should be increasing steadily, if it is decreasing it could signal low visitor engagement such as slow load times, low-quality content, confusing design - poor UX, etc
• Bounce rates - monitor these, this is a good indicator of what is working and what isn't
• Keyword position tracking - see which SEO techniques are working and which aren't.

Why is it Good to Update your Site Often? 

1. Good for SEO
2. Good for social media
3. Key to successful content marketing.
   
   Websites need to be updated often to reflect the current trends in design, ensure all information is accurate and up-to-date, and improve user experience. Depending on the purpose of your website, you may want to consider updating it more often. Keep an eye out for outdated information, poor or questionable design choices, broken links or pages, and no longer relevant information. Updating your website regularly is a great way to keep your visitors engaged and coming back for more, and is key to successful content marketing.

Sources:

How Often Should You Redesign or Update Your Website? | Cassandra Bryan Design

(35) How Often Should You Update Your Website? | LinkedIn

 (smartbugmedia.com)](https://www.smartbugmedia.com/blog/update-website#:~:text=The most simple answer to,off to a great start.)

(35) How Often Should You Update Your Website? | LinkedIn