Your website is in chaos. How do you fix it? What is “fixing it” really all about?
You know how difficult it can be to redesign your website. There are many tips and tricks to help you with every aspect of the process, including improving your copy or redesigning your website design.
You need a process – not a bag of tips that leaves you confused than you were when you started.
This framework consists of seven steps that you can use to improve the content on your website.
1. Lay the foundation
Although it may seem simple, understanding what your website does is essential before you make any changes to your website. It doesn’t matter how amazing your website is, if you don’t know what it should do, you won’t see any improvement.
It’s easy to start: you will need to set the goal for each page of your website.
Each website page has its own purpose. Your homepage should encourage people to explore further into your site. A blog post could be crucial to driving new traffic to your site. A product page is essential for sales.
Understanding the goal of each page will help you understand where it may be going wrong.
Start by placing your website in a map format. Identify all pages that you have at the moment, and then set the goals for each page.
Now it’s time for you to examine how your website fits together.
Your site is like a puzzle. Each page is just one piece of a bigger picture. Each page is a part of a larger picture – your user experience.
The organization of your website should be easy to understand for anyone trying to navigate it. Visitors shouldn’t arrive at your website and feel lost. Imagine how frustrating it can be to get the information you need on a website.
Your map can be used to organize the flow of your website. What pages are subpages within a larger section? What pages require links to other pages? You can either take note of them in the spreadsheet or indicate how they connect using indentations.
2. Understanding Your Users
Marketing 101 is key to creating a website that meets your goals. What good is a website if it isn’t tailored to the needs of the visitors you desire and need?
Before you redesign your website, it is important to know who your audience really is. Are they small business owners? Are they from local businesses?
What are their problems? What can you do to help them solve their problems?
You can create a “persona”, or profile, of your website users.
One that best describes your ideal customer. Be as descriptive as possible by including things like job title, favorite device, pay scale, main frustrations/problems, end goals, what they do in their spare time, etc. To help you navigate the process, Moz has a guide to user personas.
3. Understanding Your Data
The internet is a great tool because almost everything can be recorded. This means that you can access a huge amount of data to see why your website isn’t working.
Once you have identified your audience, it is time to dig deeper into their experience with your website.
Google is one of the most intuitive platforms to do such work. To find out where your audience gets stuck on your navigation, take some time to use Google Analytics. To see where users are falling off, take a look at the Behavior Flow section.
You have unlimited access to TONS of data. Guides have been written by me.
- Ahrefs
- SEMrush
- Search Console
- Website Data
- Bounce rate
- Improve Ad Campaigns
In your spreadsheet, create a column dedicated to optimizations. You can use your data to evaluate each page and note any potential breakdowns . It’s important to note it next to the page.
4. Do Keyword & Topical Research
Topical and keyword research are essential to understand your audience’s search habits and interests. Your site will perform better in search engines if you use the same language that your audience searches the internet for. This will allow your website to resonate with your target audience, and help it remain relevant.
Google Search Console can help you optimize your pages for search terms. It can be used to identify areas where you could adjust a page to increase organic traffic, expand on specific topics, or update old content. It will flag HTML problems such as duplicate content, titles, and meta descriptions. The complete guide to Google Search Console can be found here.
What about pages that don’t have a lot of traffic? You’ll need to do more keyword and topical research for those pages. You can find a step by step guide to using keywords in your site that will walk you through the process of implementing user language.
You can create a keyword map of your website as you go through the research process. This will allow you to add keywords and topics for each page. It can be added to an existing spreadsheet to ensure that all your information is in one location.
5. Locate Content Gaps
It’s impossible to improve on what isn’t there. Once you know what is happening with your content, it is time to look at what’s missing.
What’s the user’s point of view?
Do some internal research. Ask your sales and customer service teams what questions they are asking. Also, take a look at what your internal site searches reveal! This will tell you what people are looking for on your site, even if they don’t know how to find it.
You can also look through your emails to see what questions people are asking you about your business. These questions could be missing information on your website. You can either create a new page, or an FAQ page.
Once you have looked at your internal data, it is time to look at the outside. To find out what industry publications and rivals are doing right, you can use SEMrush or a tool such as LinkMiner from Mangools.
To find the right content for your target audience, look out for content that has significant backlinks or organic traffic. Next, add missing pages to your website spreadsheet/map with the corresponding keywords/topics.
6. Users Experience
It’s not just about improving your website’s content; it’s about improving your visitors’ experience on your site (also called user experience).
Even if you have all the information needed, users won’t be able to stay on the site if it is slow or looks bad on their mobile devices.
Poor user experience can be caused by many things, including bad design, broken links and slow page loads. It’s up to you to identify these issues and fix them.
Start by evaluating your website design. Are you using a consistent color scheme? Are your images of high quality? Is your website responsive for mobile and tablet devices? Your website’s visual appeal will be crucial in keeping users engaged and enticed by your content.
Next, let’s get into the details. First, test page speed using Google’s PageSpeed Insights Tool. This beginner’s guide will help you improve page speed if you are experiencing slow or poor speeds.
Use correct HTML formatting. Your design should value function more than form. If you don’t value design awards, then Parallax is not for you.
Broken links should also be checked. You can use Screaming Frog for a site scan to make sure that none of your internal links render a 404 page. You can also check your Search Console report if you’re specifically searching for Googlebot 404s.
7. Assess Your Copywriting
After you have addressed the technical aspects of your site, it is time to address the style.
As with all elements in this guide, good copywriting can help to increase traffic, leads and sales.
Look at each page to see where you can improve your content. You can use images to replace text where possible. What are some ways to show more of your brand’s personality? How can you break down paragraphs to make the page easier to read?
To get you started, here’s a guide that will help you improve your website copy. Select three areas that you want to improve and then implement it.
Next steps
It can be difficult to improve your website content if you don’t know where to start. A list of tricks and tips won’t help you get any further. In fact, it could leave you feeling confused.
has a plan that guides you through each step of the process. Follow the steps and take each step as it comes.
You can overhaul your website in a matter of hours if you stick to a plan.)