7 Best Checklists to Refresh Your Website Content

To maximize your profits from website content, you need to be regular in its development. Often, marketers consider effective web content as the end of the success road, but this is not the case.

If it is to be result-oriented, web content must be refreshed, revamped, and updated constantly. Having said that, another common question that arises from here, which might confuse a lot of content marketers, is the list of key points or the checklist to be followed while refreshing or updating the website content.

Now here, the idea is not to initiate a brain exercise for the marketers to brainstorm about What? What? What? But a simple and effective giveaway. Here is the secret checklist that assures an effective way to refresh website content.

Checklist #1: Title Tag & Meta Description

Title tag – The text that appears on the top of the browser over the address bar in the tab. This is standard, and for ages, we have witnessed it on every webpage. Coding has this text in the <title> tags.

The title tag, a vital SEO element, signals relevance and appears as the link on search results pages. The optimal character limit for title tags is up to 60. Improve your SEO services with concise and precise titles

Related: 5 SEO Concepts to Master in 2024

Note: Don’t forget to insert the target keyphrase at least once in the title. Preferably at the beginning.

Another important element is the Meta description. Though Meta keywords have lost their worth, the Meta description remains noteworthy. It is the text that is visible in the search results, and it is not necessary that it should also appear in the page’s content.

The “snippet” of text under each search result is either a portion of actual content or a Meta description. In other words, the first glance of the content is in store for the searcher or the user. Hence, making it good is a must.

Your ideal Meta description should be a simple English summary of your actual content of the page. The ideal character limit for the Meta description is up to 160 characters.

Note: Don’t forget to insert the target keyphrase once in the title or not more than two times.

Checklist #2: Keyphrase Use & Semantically Linked Words

Using keyphrases and their density in the body of the article is a crucial aspect to take care of. Regarding density, keyphrases can appear 2-5 times in the content body. We recommend using the words of the target phrase collectively as a ‘bonded’ phrase.

While editing the content, you need to ensure that the phrase is used well and not overused.

CAUTION!! Overstuffing of keywords is a big NO. Don’t let your readers just go through the keywords again & again. They are smart, and you can be easily caught off guilty for ‘keyword stuffing.’ Too much repetition can attract bad rankings, and chances are quite bright that you might be penalized.

Further from the specific target phrase, it is advisable to make most of the words that are semantically linked to the phrase. Explain and stretch your meaning by the use of words that are closely related to the target keyphrase.

Search engines widely love relevant content and general topics and offer good search rankings.

Checklist #3: Headline & Secondary Headline

A headline is that part which 60% wins your audience’s attention. Making sure that it is formatted using the <h1> header tag is a must. Ensure aspects like target keyphrases, indicating relevance to search engines, and asserting general topics to headers. Further of all these, the headline should be drafted for readers.

An effective headline can bring readers’ wandering thoughts to attention. Using special characters generates scope for adding a second headline. Which increases the chances of a better engagement rate & conversions. As per a study by The Guardian, ‘headlines with dashes and colons had 9% higher click rates’.

Here are some tricks that can be used to create catchy and effective headlines and also open the scope for secondary headlines.

• Promise a specific benefit.
• Create urgency
• Use a number
• Ask a question
• Trigger curiosity or emotion

Checklist #4: Featured Image & Secondary Image

Whether it is a blog or an article, if it has images in it, the chances are very bright that it will have more sharing & clicks over the social platforms.

An image, when added to the content, makes it visually appealing and hence grabs a lot of attention. Another element that gets added to content with images is memory. The pictorial effect makes it memorable.

Note: For your content to succeed, never post an article or blog without an image.

The featured image is a visual face of an article & blog. This image is what most likely will appear on the social platforms when they are seen on social media platforms. Most social media websites show a rectangular area of the images, which is roughly twice as wide as it is tall.

Tall images usually are cropped, as the “aspect ratio” is 2:1, which shows just the vertically centered area. So, social media-optimized images must meet one of these criteria:

• The width should be double in ratio as compared to the length or tallness
• The image’s main subject should be visible in the center in a vertical form rather than somewhere in the top or bottom of the image.

Always ensure that you add the heading as the title in the image; this adds value and meaning to the image. This also increases shares and clicks on the social media platform.

Related: Social Media: An Indispensable Tool for Your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Strategy

Subheadings and formatting make articles easier to go through or scan, but images altogether build interest and keep visitors or readers engaged.

An image of 500X500 after a few paragraphs can easily keep visual attention. At every scroll depth, the engagement can get stronger. Today, no write-up is full of just text, and images are visible everywhere.

With most bloggers promoting images in their write-ups, 50% of surveyed bloggers add multiple images per post.

Checklist #5: Formatting & Linking

No reader/visitor likes to look at a wall of text. Formatting your content and breaking it into paras & sentences to make it readable is a must. Well-formatted content is truly engaging.

• Short Paras

An ideal length of a paragraph should be no longer than four lines. Using short paras helps the reader to absorb the information gradually and easily. One long sentence or two short sentences can add greater emphasis.

• Bold & Italics

Another excellent way to emphasize any text is by using formatting tools. Bold or Italic text naturally attracts attention & also adds emphasis.

• Personalization In Tone

Directing your text to a specific person or a group of readers can help you achieve your ultimate goal of converting your reader into a lead or a customer.

Another great way to add emphasis is by linking. Here are various types of links that can be created every time you are to hit the ‘Publish’ button.

• Link from each new article to an older article
• Link to each new article from an older articles
• Link from every article to a product or service page
• A link from each article to the articles of an authority or expert with supportive content

Linking is an easy and effective SEO measure. Internal linking between pages adds authority flow between different web pages of your website. External linking, though, has way more impact on your rankings. But, with internal linking, you can easily add target keywords in the anchor text.

Checklist #6: Call-To-Action

Once you are geared up with a well-structured content copy to offer, it’s time to ask for something in return. Every great post has a call to actions, inviting visitors to engage more with your website content or your business.

In the end, it can simply be kept as an invitation to leave a comment. Ultimately, adding a question or opinion can allow them to offer an answer.

Another example of an effective CTA can be a one-sentence pitch to subscribe to the newsletter. After finishing reading the post, this can be the right point of appreciation, and it is very likely that they will subscribe.

For some website pages, a CTA might urge the reader to contact. Here, the aim is to crack a conversation about how you can help them if they turn into a lead.

Checklist #7: Author Box & Sharing

Thanks to the leading blog software, creating an appealing author box is quite easy. However, no matter how easy or difficult it is to create an author box, it is worth the effort. The author gets recognition over various platforms and earns credibility. This reliability helps enhance the conversion rate. The perfect author box includes the following:

• Profile picture
• Brief biography (in a few sentences)
• Link to the author’s bio on the website
• Link to other social media profiles
• Additional Media Elements

Apart from the author bio, in recent times, your content effectiveness highly depends on how well it is shared. The easier it is to share, the more it will be shared. This is another simple way to optimize your content for social media.

Related: 9 Best Ideas to Boost Sales via Ecommerce Conversion Rates

With an appealing caption or a tweak, either from the content copy or a line created that briefly explains the content, you can create interest and enhance the sharing rate. Using the article link, hashtags, and mentions is an easy way to make your content shareable.

To Wrap It Up!

Before you press that publish button, ensure you have included everything in your website content. So, did we miss anything? Do share if you have any queries or suggestions over the checklist to note while refreshing the web content mentioned above.