You already know your website is your digital storefront—but does it really work for you? If it’s not bringing in customers, answers questions, or helping you stand out, this guide is for you. Think of it as a friendly checklist you can follow in bite-sized steps—no tech jargon, no over complication, just useful updates that’ll make a difference.
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1. Set Your Starting Point: Record Your Current Metrics
Before making any changes, take a look at where things stand:
- Grab a simple analytics tool (like Google Analytics) and note how many people visit your site, where they come from, and which pages they visit.
- This snapshot gives you a baseline—you’ll know what’s actually working and what needs fixing.
2. Clarify Your Why: Know Your Goals
What do you need your website to do? Sell? Generate leads? Show off your work?
- Write down one or two clear goals, like “get more contact form inquiries” or “make services easy to understand.”
- Keeping goals simple makes every change move you in the right direction.
3. Audit Your Site: What Works, What Doesn’t
Take a critical eye to your site’s structure and performance:
- Look at your navigation—can visitors easily find what they need?
- Check your loading speed with free tools like Google PageSpeed Insights. If it’s slow, you could be losing customers before they even see your page.
- Walk through your site on a phone—if anything looks off, consider it a fix. This is where 90% of customers are look at your website.
4. Clean Up Content & Fix What’s Broken
No one likes outdated info—or broken buttons.
- Confirm contact info, services descriptions, hours of operation, newsletter sign up, and call-to-action buttons are all working and accurate.
- Replace low-quality or generic stock images with real photos or higher-quality visuals that reflect your brand.
- Get rid of typos, grammar errors, and formatting mishaps—they chip away at trust.
5. Prioritize Speed and Mobile Usability
A slow website or clunky mobile experience loses visitors quickly. Remember how long 15 seconds feels when you’re zapping your coffee? When people want something, they want it now. You can’t ditch your coffee—but your customers can ditch your website.
- Compress images, remove extra plugins or scripts, and leverage caching for faster page load times.
- Make sure the mobile version is clean, legible, and easy to navigate—no pinching or squinting.
6. Enhance Your SEO (So People Actually Find You
Search engines can’t love your site if they can’t find or understand it.
- Make a content inventory—keep what matters, spruce up what's underperforming (no one is visiting the content), and remove what’s outdated.
- Set up—or double-check—you have Google Analytics and Search Console active so you can track improvements.
- Make sure your redirects are in place if you rename or retire pages, so you don’t lose visitors or rankings.
- There are free tools out there you can use to audit your site. Try ubersuggest.com, they'll provide a list of action items you can tackle to improve your SEO.
7. Refresh Look and Feel
Your site needs to reflect who you are—clearly and consistently.
- Use consistent fonts, colors, and messaging across every page.
- Look at other websites you admire and note what you like—those ideas can guide your own refresh.
- Make navigation intuitive: eliminate clutter, keep menus simple, and help visitors find what matters quickly.
8. Test and Refine
Now that changes are live, monitor what’s happening:
- Re-run those speed tests and analytics reviews. How much faster is your site? Are people staying longer?
- Fix anything that breaks or doesn’t look right in real use.
9. Tell the World—and Keep It Fresh
You’ve made your site better. Now let people know:
- Send an email to your customers announcing the update.
- Post on social media—even a quick “We gave our website some love” goes a long way.
- Schedule a quick refresh check every 6–12 months to keep things current.
In Summary: Your Refresh Checklist at a Glance:
- Record current website performance
- Write down clear, measurable goals
- Audit navigation, pages, speed, mobile
- Fix broken links, outdated content, images, grammar
- Improve speed and mobile friendliness
- Do a content clean-up and SEO tune-up
- Refresh brand consistency and layout
- Test changes and track performance
- Share the news and plan periodic updates
Why This Works for You
We know you are busy running your business. You don’t have a week to learn web design, and you shouldn’t. That’s why this checklist focuses on practical, high-impact tweaks you can make—one step at a time. Whether you do it yourself or partner with someone like The Scale Theory, these are the checks that genuinely move the needle. Your website should be an asset—and with this guide, you’re finally making it one.
Website Refresh: Printable Worksheet
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Your website is too important to guess at what needs fixing.