New Year is a time when we take stocks of stuff and make preparations months ahead. People make all sorts of resolutions, many of which end up broken despite the best of intentions, but revamping your website is one of the resolutions that is quite achievable–here are a few tweaks to help you ‘freshen up’ your site:
1. Select a new Header image
Website is primarily a visual tool, which means the appearance affects its success dramatically. Changing the Header image of your website may seem a very small act but it will have a profound impact on your own perception of your site and your readers. Always choose something relevant to your products, services and industry. Give it a bold try and be original at the same time – after all, who isn’t sick of seeing the WordPress Twenty Ten Header?
2. Enhance SEO
When you first started to build the site, you probably thought about SEO, but left it at that after the site is done. SEO isn’t that complex though. Well, for instance, now that 2013 is here, why don’t you take advantage of all that ‘new year energy’ and sort out your Meta Description? Meta Description is what search engine displays in the searching results area. If well written, a lot more users can be drawn to your site.
Make sure your description is within 160 characters as Google truncates information after this; keep it short and concise.
Code sample:
3. Change the best font
You should also consider the font in which your content is displayed. There are plenty articles online about the most popular webpage fonts; it’s never easy to choose the most suitable font among those numerous kinds. Ultimately you need to combine practicality and aesthetic appeal to achieve the perfection. Choose something which looks great as well as easy for the readers’ eyes.
Take a look at some successful websites for inspiration. Remember you don’t have to restrain your site in just one font type. There are different options for heading and the main body part– just make sure they complement one another and retain unity of style across the site as a whole.
4. Check landing pages
Email campaign is one of the most cost-effective ways of drumming up new business and gaining more potential chances from existing customers. Your email campaign will provide each recipient with a link, make sure that the link is not dead and that it actually directs consumers to a relevant part of your website. The information promised in the email and further details of extra offers should be displayed and arranged logically on your website.
5. Review your navigation
How a website looks is one thing and how it works is whole another story. Take time to review your sitemap and navigation list and ensure everything flows smoothly. Single-page design generates a simplistic feel and poses an easy and clean interface for users to navigate through, while multi-page website is an option with different benefits. Navigation pattern is so important to a website that it really is worthy of your time and attention. jQuery can be applied to breathe new air into the navigation section.
6. Choose a new set of Social Media buttons
Today’s world is dominated by activities which take place across social media platforms so it is important that you make this a focus of your website. While you will almost certainly have already linked your website to your social profiles, just spend a few minutes to go over all the connection, make sure they are correctly connected to your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or whatsoever, also the placement of these social media icons should be reviewed. Placing icons that link to social media profiles in the website’s header section is always a good idea. Visitors are more likely to pay attention to stuffs placed in such important area.
Adding some social bookmarks to any blog post is also nice option to increase the potential activity of sharing among viewers. You can give your website a fresh look by choosing a new set of icons to go with your existing social media buttons, or choose a new social media plugin entirely.
These tweaks aren’t too drastic but still yield some nice results if you want to freshen up your blog or website ready for 2013.
