How to Refresh Your Website for the New Year

So things in your online, creative business have changed a bit recently? Or maybe it’s just time to update your website for all the huge opportunities you know are coming your way this new year?

Regardless of what brought you here, refreshing your website for the new year sounds like it takes longer than it actually does, trust me.

To keep your to-do list short and sweet, these are 5 easy steps to give your website a quick glow up to start the new year off right.

01. Change the copyright in your footer to the new year

If you don’t have a copyright in the footer of your website at all, don’t worry! It’s never too late to add it in. And if you’re wondering if you’re even allowed to copyright your website without a bunch of paperwork and legal fees, the answer is YES!

As long as your website is original work, it’s copyrighted as soon as it’s published. All you need to do is add a little copyright notice at the bottom of your footer. You might have already seen it on other websites, but here’s an example of what it can look like:

Whichever year it is now, go ahead and update the year on your copyright to the current year. If you want your copyright to cover all of the years that your website has been live, then you’ll want to add the year it was first published like this:

“© 2018-2022 Your Company Name”

Then your bases will be covered! If you need legal advice, please seek out a licensed legal professional. I’m definitely not one!

02. Update your imagery if you have new brand photos or branding assets

If you recently did a brand photoshoot and haven’t put the new photos up, this is your friendly reminder to pencil in some time (or ask your virtual assistant) to update all the photos across your website. Show off that gorgeous face of yours! Your audience wants to see the authentic version of you and that means retiring old photos that don’t quite match your vibe anymore.

Or if you’ve done a brand redesign or just have some fun new branding assets, pop those onto your website to keep it fresh! Repeat website visitors will love seeing the care you pour into your business and new website visitors will appreciate the up-to-date visuals and aesthetic.

03. Update services and/or digital product descriptions if their details have recently changed

Your biz is constantly evolving so it’s only natural that some details, scopes, or aspects of your services or products change.

It’s so important to keep these details updated on your website to prevent anyone from trying to book or purchase something that doesn’t exist like that anymore.

Don’t forget: Your website is your 24/7 salesperson! People can check it out from anywhere in the world, on any day, at any time.

04. Replace any old testimonials with new ones

Did you know featuring three testimonials can increase sales by 34%?!

If you’ve got brand spankin’ new testimonials, put them up! You’ve worked so hard to do right by your clients and you deserve to show off all of the positive things they’ve said!

Plus potential customers always want to hear what your most recent clients have said about their experiences. This gives them better insight into what working with you is like at this point in time, not 8 months ago.

The key is to keep them short and sweet, and not include more than five. Why? Because in 2021, about 70% of online shoppers typically read between one and six customer reviews before deciding whether or not to buy something. That means people are generally satisfied after reading about five reviews, so there’s no need to overwhelm them with more than five testimonials.

05. Take a look at your Google Analytics data for the previous year

If your Google Analytics account is full of data, you’ve got a treasure trove of golden nuggets just waiting to be discovered. You can see which blog posts performed the best and worst, which pages people bounced the most off of, and even how people found specific pages (whether it was from Pinterest, Instagram, Google Search, or elsewhere).

PRO TIP: How to see which blog posts people spent the most time on

Step 01. Open up your Google Analytics account and make sure you’re on the UA version of Google Analytics by clicking on ‘Main’ in the top left corner

Step 02. Click on Behavior from the panel on the left

Step 03. Click on Site Content from the dropdown menu and then click on All Pages

Here, you’ll see some critical stats about all the pages on your website, including Avg. Time on Page. This is the average amount of time spent on a specific page by everyone who has visited each page so far.

Essentially, the longer a page’s average is, generally the more time people are taking to read and think about what’s on it.

Before we go any further, you’re going to want to change the time frame of the data to at least the past 30 days, preferably the last 3 months. With a bigger pool of data, there’s a smaller margin of error. That means weird outliers (like from bots) won’t affect your metrics as much.

To do that, scroll up to the top of the page and click on the date range in the top right corner to set it to the past 30 days or 3 months.

Now, click on Avg. Time on Page and you should see which pages on your website people have spent the longest (on average). Hit the tiny grey arrow in the Avg. Time on Page box and you’ll see which pages on your website people have spent the shortest amount of time (on average).

If some of your blog posts have low averages, like 10 seconds or less, that’s a sign those posts could use some more good words on them. Or it’s a sign that the material isn’t interesting enough to hold people’s attention. In any case, low averages on blog posts typically mean the content could be improved. But before you go spend hours improving blog posts, consider which blog posts would be the highest priority for you and start from there.

BONUS. WordPress users, check for any WordPress updates

While WordPress.org has its many benefits, one inconvenient side of it is that you have to manually update both your version of WordPress and any plugins you have downloaded.

It’s crucial to keep that stuff updated because bots or bad people can be sneaky and potentially do some damage to your website if they find backdoors.

06. Have fun updating your site

Your website is your online home! Just like with your real home, cleaning it out and jazzing it up is always a party. You’re making space for all that’s to come, so don’t forget to be proud of all you’ve accomplished so far. Enjoy this transitional moment – you deserve it!

It’s not every day that we busy business owners get to really focus on our websites. Put on your favorite playlist, light an energy-boosting candle (like anything citrus), and dive into the zone. You got this!