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It’s been a long time since you actually checked your website content, right? Your website content is what builds relationships with your audience and leads them to take the action you want them to take.
If your website isn’t working to achieve this goal, there’s a good chance the problem is your content. Sometimes, you need to conduct a review and make the necessary changes to improve your website’s performance.
While you are crafting and designing your website pages, you are viewing the “big picture.” But, while you gaze out over the whole forest, don’t forget to take a look at the individual trees as well. Details are what separates a good website from one that people visit frequently and recommend to others.
What’s A Website Content Review?
Website Review: A process for checking your website’s performance against a number of parameters.
Website Content Review: The process of auditing the content on your website, identifying key areas that need to be improved, removed or retained.
Does It Really Matter?
Website traffic refers to web users who visit a website. Web traffic is measured in visits, sometimes called “sessions,” and is a common way to measure an online business’ effectiveness at attracting an audience (Source: Big Commerce)
Therefore, when visitors browse your website, they desire easy navigation, attractive design, and relevant content. As people spend less time online, however, businesses must leverage the website features users value most to hold audiences’ attention. People are becoming more selective about the time they spend online.
That’s why the devil is in the details as they say. It is the detail at the smallest and most basic level that will make or break your website. When readers notice these anomalies, they may give you a chance to fix them. If you don’t, they will simply move on to a website that does take the extra time and effort to give their viewers a professional and aesthetically pleasing experience.
With that said, is your website up to snuff? It may require you to take a step back from your design so you are able to see what you couldn’t before. Ask a trusted friend to take a look at your work as a visitor would and find any detail flaws. It’ll all be worth it in the end.
How Do I Review Content On My Website?
It all boils down to paying attention to the details. Now it’s time to find out just where you might be going wrong with your website. What could potentially be driving people away from you? Here are a few tips.
Leverage White Space
Don’t try to put everything on the same page – It’s like hoarding for web designers. You may have a lot of lovely images and such, but they don’t convey the desired effect if they are all in one place. People can’t view them with an eye to focus on each one if they are not strategically presented. Spread it out.
Employ Spell Check
Your content should be error-free – After viewing your web pages for several hours, your brain may just gloss over those missing letters because it knows that they were supposed to be there. Come back in a few hours with fresh eyes and catch those errors before you go live. Spelling mistakes are annoying and can slow down reading efforts. Besides, it’s just downright unprofessional looking.
Format Strategically
Content breaks – It is hard to read a long content piece that is devoid of subheadings, bold typing, lists, and the like. If you want readers to keep reading, build in some points of respite for their weary brains.
Maximize the Use of Color
The grayed-out effect – Just like a dog can’t see colors, your web pages will become washed out when there is no contrast present to break things up and draw the eye to certain areas of the page. Websites are to be viewed for color and consistency as much as for the content. Just like French food, it should be a feast for the eyes as well.
Attention to detail matters to your audience. They want to know that you care.
Define the Purpose of Each Page
Let’s start by taking each page and defining its purpose. For example, your home page should direct people to the specific information they’re looking for. Your product page should lead people to buy. Your blog provides helpful information with links to your information product. When analyzing pages, create a spreadsheet to help you organize the information.
Study Your Analytics
Look at your website analytics. Use a simple and free program that’s easy to understand. What you’re trying to find out is how long people stay on each page and where they go next. Google’s free analytics tool is more than enough for this purpose.
If you’ve identified a purpose for each page, you can track whether visitors are doing what you wanted them to do. Are they taking action on pages where you call them to action? Are they spending time on your blog pages reading your posts?
Use analytics to determine whether people are taking the action you want them to take. If they’re not, it means you need to figure out why and update.
Identify Your Greatest Hits
Analytics will also tell you which pieces of content are performing best. Look at the pages people spend the most time on. These are the topics your audience is most interested in. For example, if you have a blog on coaching and some posts on hosting webinars for marketing, this is a good topic to create more content on.
Is Everything Up to Date?
As you go through your content, make sure everything is up to date. Look for gaps that would be helpful to fill. As part of your review, you might want to do some light editing and tweaks in the wording. Correct any typos you find and keep an eye out for anything that’s inaccurate or off-brand.
Scope out the Competition
As part of your review, look at some competitors’ websites. You can compare and see how yours stacks up. You may also get ideas on how to improve your site or see areas they’re not covering that you can cover to differentiate yourself.
Create an Action Plan
The purpose of a website content audit isn’t just to have a look at your site’s performance. After analyzing its performance, create a detailed action plan. Identify goals for your site. Knowing what you now know about its performance, what do you need to do to increase engagement?
Attention to detail matters to your audience. They want to know that you care. How often should you do a content review? The best practice is to conduct a review at least once a year, but you can’t audit and optimize your site too often.
Start Your Website Content Review Today
There are a number of important factors when considering the quality of a website. Among these are design, ease of use, mobile optimization, attention-grabbing content, SEO, and accessibility to important data like location and contact information.
The content on your website also needs to be accurate and up-to-date. If a visitor discovers incorrect or old information on your site, they are likely to lose confidence in your brand and will quickly bounce to another site. Therefore, implement required updates, resolve any issues, make it happen, and follow through!
Related: How to Check Your Website Performance
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