Your website is one of the most important aspects of your business, it is your online shopfront and the first port of call for any potential customer after they first come across your brand. 

Where to Start

There is so much to consider when thinking about improving your website, from design to technical performance, and SEO to CTAs. There's a never-ending list to consider, all while maintaining a budget. They're not even finished when you launch them; it’s an ongoing process to keep them at their best. 

So how do you decide if a full refresh is required and where do you start when you're thinking about it? Well, we've created a website questionnaire that will help guide you and allow you to collect all your thoughts on your website. you can download it here.

However, before you busily start filling it out here are a few things to do, to give you the information you need:

Test Your Website's Performance 

We utilize a number of tools to periodically test our site. It's a great way to see if you need large changes to your website or if it's simply in need of Maintenance. It's always good to look at the technical side of your website and test those parts of the site you want to improve. We recommend the following testing tools:

GTMetrix 

Think with google

Gathering Design Ideas

If you're thinking that a design refresh is the way to go then pulling together what you like to see can be quite tricky. However, there are lots of tools out there to give you a helping hand. Firstly we'd recommend taking a look at Website Awards. This site pulls together the best the web has to offer and can be a bit of a rabbit hole for top-notch website designs. It's an amazing place to start looking at what your best design could look like.

Next, we'd recommend that you look at other websites in your industry either from peers or competitors, now you don't want to end up with a carbon copy of their website however it's always useful to take a look through and write down the following

• What you liked 

• What you don't like

• Any quirky bits of functionality you'd like to explore further 

• Any animation style you’d like to replace but with different use-case

• How they integrate their website with other social platforms, CRM system or tools you can visibly see 

Check Your Copy 

As a website develops over time and multiple people add tweaks to a site it can erode the sharpness of the copy. A great way to check this is to use Hemmingway Editor as a way to rate the readability and effectiveness of your copy. It's a great way to see if you need some help smartening it up. It’s worth mentioning that while this is a fantastic way to see if you need to make improvements, it never beats the detailed eye of a professional copywriter.

Run a Short Survey 

Getting feedback from the people that use your site is invaluable. You could send a small survey out to your customers at this stage to get their feedback on your site. Or ongoing you can install HotJar for free. It will allow you to enable any visitor to your website to give you feedback on your site, as well as give you a heatmap of usage so you can see where your site performs well and where it might need more to grab attention. 

Check SEO Performance 

When it comes to whether your site is performing well in terms of SEO you can use a few free plugin tools such as Yoast SEO to get a very topline health check.  

We'd also recommend going back to your keywords list and reviewing if they are still relevant to your business now. Check Google Analytics and see what your customers are really searching to find your site and review whether to add these keywords to your site.

If you have any questions or would like us to help you conduct the review, please get in touch either through the chat function on our website or emailing hello@beaconagency.co.uk