{"id":1396,"date":"2019-04-03T20:11:58","date_gmt":"2019-04-03T20:11:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/consultusdigital.com\/demo2025\/?p=1396"},"modified":"2019-04-03T20:11:58","modified_gmt":"2019-04-03T20:11:58","slug":"6-tips-updating-website","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/consultusdigital.com\/blog\/6-tips-updating-website\/","title":{"rendered":"6 Tips For Updating Your Website"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>6 Things to Do Before Making Changes To Your Website<\/h2>\n<p>No matter how attractive or functional your website is, chances are you\u2019re going to make changes in it.<\/p>\n<p>For one thing, the online platform may become obsolete over time, leaving it unable to serve your purpose. And for another, your web design tastes and preferences might also have changed.<\/p>\n<p>Whatever the case is, being tempted to make changes to your website&#8217;s design is normal, especially if it\u2019s been around for a long time. Plus, keeping your website looking fresh and with more recent content is key to climbing the ranks on Google.<\/p>\n<p>So what should you keep in mind before making a major overhaul to your website?<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re seriously considering revamping your website\u2019s look, there are several crucial things you need to do before you take the plunge. Read our top tips for updating your website below!<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/consultusdigital.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/tips-on-updating-website.jpg\" alt=\"Things To Do Before Making Changes To Your Website - Consultus Digital\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1067\" \/><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2>Have a Good Reason<\/h2>\n<p>If you\u2019re going to redesign your website, you best do it for the right reasons.<\/p>\n<p>Digital content consumers generally don\u2019t like it when massive changes are abruptly made on their favourite sites. Thus, making redesigns on a whim is out of the question.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, if you want to make your online platform more user-friendly, <a href=\"\/seo-toronto\/\">SEO-optimized<\/a>, and accessible, then you might be better off making the changes \u2015 no matter how high the web design costs! One of the best tips for updating your website is recognizing when the time is right for a website design and when to hold off.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2>Backup the Old Site<\/h2>\n<p>One of the most vital tips on updating your website is to maintain an up-to-date backup of your website before beginning your redesign.<\/p>\n<p>By doing so, you\u2019ll be able to revert to your online platform\u2019s old look in case you find any undesirable side effects on the new one. For instance, in case you\u2019re running an online store and your new Order page isn\u2019t gathering as many customers as your old one, you can simply re-upload the older page while still figuring out if there\u2019s anything wrong with the structure, design, and algorithm of its newer counterpart.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2>Minimize URL Change Impact<\/h2>\n<p>Changing your website\u2019s URL while you\u2019re redesigning its structure is a <a href=\"https:\/\/ignitevisibility.com\/why-changing-urls-can-devastate-seo-traffic\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bad move<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Adjusting URLs can potentially leave your old page losing the hard-earned reputation it had built-in search engines. Plus, the links pointing your online platform to other websites will not necessarily be transferred to the new page if you greatly tweak the URL. By redirecting requests from the old page to the original, however, you can minimize the impact of the changes you made in your site\u2019s URL.<\/p>\n<p>One of our biggest tips for updating your website is to tell Google and your target audience that your page has changed location permanently through proper redirects. Adding a link in the old page that points to the new isn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2>Start with CSS Files Only<\/h2>\n<p>More likely than not, you\u2019ll be using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) when managing your website\u2019s appearance.<\/p>\n<p>While you can get away with completely overhauling your website\u2019s display from scratch, simply tweaking your CSS files to change your online platform\u2019s look can be more than enough. Not only is doing so more comfortable, but it\u2019s also less time-consuming since you don\u2019t have to visit and modify every page of your website.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2>Test New Site Design<\/h2>\n<p>Understand that revamping your website requires first knowing how visitors use its pages.<\/p>\n<p>By testing a potential redesign on a few pages for a limited period, you can avoid significant fluctuations. Major changes and <a href=\"\/web-development\/\">redesigns on your website<\/a> can have a tremendous impact on its look and functionality. For one thing, it can increase or decrease traffic flow, making some pages more visible while rendering others practically inaccessible and buried deep.<\/p>\n<p>Redesigns can also affect your site\u2019s sales and advertising income. Luckily, you can monitor these by examining the path visitors take through your online platform\u2019s web statistics.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2>The Bottom Line<\/h2>\n<p>For webmasters everywhere (yourself included), redesigning a website every few years or so is a fact of life.<\/p>\n<p>By keeping the things discussed above in mind, you\u2019ll be able to minimize any disruptions that will follow after you make major changes to your online platform.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for reading and if you have any other tips that I may have missed, please leave them in the comments section!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>6 Things to Do Before Making Changes To Your Website No matter how attractive or functional your website is, chances are you\u2019re going to make changes in it. For one thing, the online platform may become obsolete over time, leaving it unable to serve your purpose. And for another, your web design tastes and preferences [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":26045,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_header_footer","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-web-design","category-web-development"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/consultusdigital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/consultusdigital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/consultusdigital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/consultusdigital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/consultusdigital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/consultusdigital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/consultusdigital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/consultusdigital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/consultusdigital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/consultusdigital.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}