When was the last time you really looked at your website? Not to fix a broken link, but to actually check the graphics. If it’s been a while, it’s probably obvious that you’ve been neglecting it, and you can bet that visitors have noticed.
But let’s say you can tell some things need to change. How often should you do it? If you do it now, when is the next time you need to update? If you keep making updates every week, you’ll confuse your audience and waste money on tweak after tweak. However, if you wait too long, your site will start to look tired.
This is why you need a plan. Some graphics need to stay the same, and others need to be refreshed regularly.
In this article, you’ll learn how often you need to make updates and why up-to-date graphics are so important.
What Fresh Graphics Do for Engagement
Visitors notice your graphics before they read a single letter on your page, so to say that graphics are important is a major understatement.
If you have a website, then you’re aware of how fast styles change online. Your layout may have looked sleek and crisp 3 years ago, but now it’s dated. Users instantly pick up on that, and while it may not be the thing that turns them away instantly, it’s still hurting your business.
But if graphics are modern and easy to look at, you make a better first impression on whoever lands on your page, and visitors will usually stick around longer. When they don’t, it’s hello, high bounce rates, and goodbye, trust. Outdated visuals send the message that the brand isn’t paying attention, while updated ones show you’re active and relevant.
Fresh graphics can even help with conversions, although visuals alone can’t carry the whole experience. Text is important, too, because great visuals and stale text look very disconnected. If you’re not an expert at writing content for SEO, you might want to look at SEO content writing services. If your website is a core part of your business, then this isn’t even a mere recommendation; it’s mandatory. Think about it – your competitors are hiring the top-notch SEO agencies to get to the top of the SERP in their respective niche/industry. So, if you want to stay competitive, so should you; there’s really no other way around this.
It’s really important to keep copy in step with changes in design, so your message stays consistent.
How Often Do You Need to Update Different Parts of Your Website
Well… The unpopular answer, “It depends.”, will have to do here. That’s because it really does depend on what part of your site you’re looking at and how quickly things change in your business.
Let’s take a closer look.
Your logo and layouts on the main pages are the backbone of your site, so you don’t need to change them all that often.
They’re important for consistency, and it’s better not to touch them too much. The only time you need to update these parts is if you’re rebranding or you need a major redesign to improve user experience.
Changing them just for the sake of change will cause more harm than good.
According to multiple studies – one of which is the one published in the Behaviour & Information Technology journal, Vol 25, Issue 2, by Taylor & Francis – point to a website having a mere 50 milliseconds to make a good first impression, and your home and landing pages are where people land first.
And to be frank, that’s not a lot, so you need to make the most out of it!
Your landing pages always need to feel up to date and be relevant to what’s happening in your business. A refresh every 6-12 months works fine, but if you’re launching something new, make sure to update them so they don’t feel off.
Things like headers and charts last longer, but they still age.
You’ll want to look over these pages every year or so and give the graphics a refresh. The content might still be useful and relevant, but if the visuals look dated, most visitors will assume that the information is dated, too, and click out.
These need to be a perfect match to reality.
If your product looks different now or you’ve changed your services, the images absolutely have to reflect that. And even if you didn’t do any major changes, you should still update this part of your site about once a year to keep things looking nice and fresh.
Nobody wants to stare at a stale catalog!
This is the part that needs to be changed the most often.
If you leave a holiday banner after the holidays are over, it’s like saying to visitors that you don’t care about your site. The same goes for seasonal promo. There’s no timeframe in which you need to swap these out; it depends on what you’re doing. If the holiday is over, the banner needs to come down. Same thing if a campaign ends.
This way, your visitors always see something current.
Conclusion
Would you wear the same old thing year after year?
No, right?
Graphics work the same way. They don’t need a complete overhaul every month, but they absolutely need an occasional refresh to remind visitors that your brand is still active and relevant.
Keep things fresh and current because that’s what keeps people on the page. It lets them know that this is a brand that’s worth their time and not just a random page that someone put up years ago and now doesn’t do anything with it.