Don’t Forget About Your Content: Update it Often
The last thing you want your site visitors to think is that you don’t care about your site. The best way to keep this from happening is to make sure you’re reviewing and refreshing your content often. If your site contains a lot of old information, site visitors won’t know what’s still relevant and may lose trust in your utility organization. You want to keep your site engaging and exciting. Our trusted web experts have some easy ways to keep your site looking its best.
Outdated Information
Pages that have information such as scholarship applications or applying for grants most likely have deadlines. Once that deadline has passed, make sure you go back to that page and update the content. Let people know that the deadline has passed, and they should no longer try to apply. But don’t stop there; if it applies, keep things optimistic and add information on the next application period, so they know to check back.
Keeping Items Forever
Don’t keep everything forever—your website shouldn’t be your junk drawer. If you have ten years of news or agendas and minutes on your site, it might be time to get rid of some. Otherwise, this makes your site feel too cluttered and messy. This can also complicate searchability if there really isn’t a need for the content anymore. Every year or two, go through your content and archive or remove any old items to keep your site feeling fresh and up to date.
Flow & Hierarchy
Have you added lots of new pages lately? Does the flow still make sense? It might be necessary to take a look at your global menu items to see if they need to be updated. Subpages under each global item should have a clear reason why they’re located there. When adding new content, make sure it’s placed under a relevant category. This gives your menu a good flow so site visitors can easily find what they need.
Specific Content Considerations
Old Pages
Remove pages that are no longer relevant for your utility organization. Maybe some of those services are no longer offered. If so, you want to make sure it’s not still highlighted on your site. This will confuse site visitors if they see a service and expect that it’s offered to them. If you have an old page and you want to keep some but not all of the content, see if it would be a good fit on an already existing page.
New Pages
Before you add new pages, make sure they’re relevant. Maybe you have a new program or some new rebates. Add in this information so site visitors have the opportunity to apply or learn more about what your utility organization offers. They will then check back often, knowing that your content is regularly updated. Also, consider things people call the most to ask about and whether building an informational page on your website can ease phone traffic.
Photos
The best photos to use on your site are photos from your community and your employees. This creates a welcoming and friendly feel for your site. Where possible, eliminate stock images and replace them with photos that portray your area and the people in your community. Your site will feel original, authentic, and refreshingly different. Update photos every few years to keep things new and exciting.
Broken Links
Nothing is more frustrating than clicking on a link and being taken to a page that no longer exists. It’s appropriate to provide external links to other sites where site visitors can get more information or learn more about a topic you were discussing, but make sure you check these from time to time. Sometimes other websites update their pages, rename them, or just delete them. You want to make sure that all the links on your site lead to an existing page.
Customer or Member Feedback
We have the radical idea of putting people first, so utilize feedback from your customers or members! They’re the ones coming to your site, so they have valuable opinions on how they are using your website. Too much information on some pages? Try to simplify by cutting it down, using bulleted lists, or breaking out the information into headings to make it easier to digest.
If they’re having trouble locating certain pages, try to re-organize your content to make it easy to navigate. They are your most valuable critics.
The Takeaway: Take Care of Your Content
Your utility organization and community are continually changing. Your website should too. Keep your website up to date to keep that connection with your site visitors strong and ensure they’ll come back.
