Spring is a time for renewal, and chances are your website is long overdue for a renovation. Website design philosophy is frequently changing and you need to make sure your web presence is aligned with the latest trends, otherwise you could be missing out on valuable conversions.

A website refresh can feel like a hassle, but it’s necessary to ensure you’re meeting user experience best practices so your conversion optimization strategy is operating at peak performance.

Here are 5 crucial areas to look into for your website’s spring cleaning.

1. Does Your Website Align with Your Brand Identity?

Your website is your digital storefront. And just like you wouldn’t let your physical storefront fall into disrepair, you can’t lose out on customers because they don’t like the look or feel of your website.

That means making sure that your website feels fresh, modern and reflects your brand identity. Many business owners look at their website after a few years and struggle to see their company’s values reflected in the dated design. The pride you take in your business and the quality of the goods and services you offer should be evident on every page of your site.

A website update is your chance to wow new customers with a clean, professional design and well-written copy that both lionizes your wares and is optimized to rank highly in Google Search results. Remember, you’re the best in your business and your website should reflect that.

2. Is your Website Responsive and Optimized for Mobile Users?

The first step to meeting website user experience best practices is by embracing responsive website design. This means making sure the website is optimized for whatever device users choose to view it on, whether it be mobile, tablet or desktop.

Even if your website was updated within the last five years and is reasonably responsive, web design moves quickly and it might not live up to today’s exacting standards, especially on mobile platforms. Common issues mobile users face include long load times, buttons that are too small for their thumbs, and fonts that are too small to read.

Remember, your customers are super busy people. Your mobile site needs to load at turbo speed and people need to be able to read, click and accomplish tasks quickly and efficiently on your site, or you’ll lose them faster than your page loaded.

Think that mobile conversions aren’t important for your business? Consider that nearly 60 percent of all Google searches are performed on mobile devices. Looking at kids and their phone/tablet habits, you can rest assured that proportion is only going to keep rising.

3. Is Your Website Found on Google?

Search engine optimization should be a cornerstone of your conversion optimization strategy. By utilizing the right keywords throughout your website, you can increase traffic, clicks, impressions, and of course, conversions, by making sure it’s the first result people see when they search for products or services related to your brand.

Want to quickly find out if you need to update your keywords without any sort of analytics reports? Pop them onto Google and see if your website is on the first page of results. If it’s not, you have some work to do.

Once you build or update new keyword groups to target, itself a Herculean task unless you deal in hyper-specific goods or services, you then have to go through the task of integrating them throughout your website update. This includes the meta title, meta description, headings and body copy, and even alt-text on images.

However, while organic search results are important, you should also embark on a pay-per-click advertising campaign with Google AdWords. While using AdWords to its full potential requires expertise, getting started with the platform is quick, and, more importantly, affordable.

Once you set your budget, Google only bills you once an ad is clicked, so you’re getting guaranteed bang for your buck. The ability to target your ads is also invaluable in terms of getting your brand noticed by your target demographic, thus building brand awareness.

4. Do You Have New Content?

Your website should evolve as your company evolves. When you read through your copy on your home page and key offerings, does your website explain how you do business today vs. 3-5 years ago?

Be honest – does your website echo that shift in focus that your business evolved into within the last several years?

If not, then it’s time to update your website’s content with information about your current products and services, to include key benefits to your customers TODAY.

Your web pages should also be optimized to draw in Google searchers looking for the sort of things you offer.

Additionally, frequent updates are important for driving engagement and building brand trust and ongoing loyalty.

Blogs that are only updated every few months make a company look like they don’t have a pulse as it looks like they have no new information to share. Think of updating your blogs at least once a month. Update your news section at least every other month. Ensure that your product and services pages are kept fresh. And every time you make these updates, share them on your social media sites.

All of these updates will keep your site fresh and current in the eyes of your customers, building your credibility with them as well as with Search Engines (to gain better rankings).

5. Do You Have a Conversion Optimization Strategy in Place?

Ultimately, the main purpose of your website is to generate leads and net new business. That’s why it’s important to make sure every facet of your redesign is conversion optimized. From the moment people land on your home or landing page, they need to know exactly what you do, how you can fulfill their needs, how to get in touch with you, and most importantly, how to purchase your offerings.

Remember, your goal is to connect your stock with their needs. They have a need and your business is the solution, so make it easy for them to take the next step with a strong, clear call to action (CTA) on every page.

A clear CTA gives consumers the option to pursue the conversion you want – whether it’s to call you, fill out an inquiry form, or purchase a product. If they’re impressed by your website’s design and responsiveness, the quality of your copy, and the strength of your brand presence, chances are all you need to do at this point is help them take the next step.

If all this sounds like Greek to you, turn to a team with 20 years of experience in this fast-changing world of digital marketing for expertise in web design, SEO, and conversion optimization strategies.

Not only can we ensure your website is responsive, optimized and updated, but we can implement a number of strategies to build brand awareness and maximize conversions.

Get started with a free website audit, and then we’ll dust off your website’s cobwebs with our proven conversion-optimized growth strategy.