Published:

03/22/2013 08:49pm

Ideas to Freshen Up Your Website!

When a visitor arrives at your website you want them to be intrigued and impressed. You don't want them thinking... "Are they out of business?" "They haven't posted on here in months!" Keep your website fresh with these ideas.

First and foremost, make sure you can do updates yourself. Relying on the web guy or girl for revisions is time consuming and costly. Ensure your website is built on a platform such as Wordpress or CMS that allows you to easily make changes or additions. In some sections, you may need assistance from your website developer but these should be areas that do not change as often - such as your header, footer and/or graphics.

Have a designated area for new information. Ideally, this is your blog where you will post regular updates. Sometimes this might be a "News" section. Perhaps you regularly change the statement on your home page. Although you want to keep the whole website current having specific areas where updates will be posted keeps you focused in what to add, and helps customers know where to check for updates.

Look for ways to make updates obvious and automatic. Most blog systems will show the date it was posted. If not, be sure to include the date yourself. Have a small area in your footer or side bar where the most recent blog titles are displayed automatically. If you have a very strong, visually enticing blog you may want to make it your home page. If you are very active on Facebook or Twitter you might consider an embedded window feed on your website although I don't always recommend this.

Monitor event dates. If you are not using some kind of automated system to post upcoming events, program dates, registration deadlines etc. be sure to manually remove these once the date has passed. For example, if you will be offering a foraging hike on May 8th, be sure to remove this listing after that date.

Update photos. Sure the picture of the cow in the meadow might be timeless but what about the group photo from your workshop 3 years ago? The hairstyles and clothing worn by your students may give away that it is an older photo. Remember to make sure people in the photos are smiling! I recommend gently 'staging' the photo as necessary. Often it is better to ask people to stop and pose for the camera mid action with a smile rather than try to capture that impromptu moment perfectly.

Ensure your business hours and location information are up to date. If these are not consistent or change on a regular basis you may want to leave them off to avoid any confusion. For example, if you do many of your sales at the farm gate it may be better to simply state "by appointment only" and clearly provide contact information.

If you do social media well, don't ignore your website completely. If your Facebook account is buzzing as you post and share interesting photos and stories - terrific! Keep in mind though, that potential customers may find your website before your Facebook profile, and rely on the information found there. Ensure you are spending at least some time, on a regular basis, keeping your website current.

With these tips in mind visitors to your website will easily recognize that you are in business. As time passes, and you continually add updates you will also develop a depth of content on your site that will strengthen your credibility.

Susan Ratz of Milkweed Marketing specializes in providing virtual marketing support for green inspired businesses. Her business background, as well as her marketing and not-for-profit experience help small business owners find and keep customers while generating more revenue. Get Susan's free report "7 Online Marketing Trends Green Inspired Businesses Need to Know" at http://www.milkweedmarketing.com