Welcome to the land of “zombie websites” – websites plagued by outdated, lackluster content that drains the vitality from your business’ online presence. Oh no!

Your website serves as the face of your business, often helping potential customers form their first impressions. But, the face of your business could just as easily scare them away! 

Symptoms of a Zombie Website

Fortunately for you, brave zombie-hunter, zombie websites are easy to spot. They exhibit symptoms like: high bounce rates (ooo!), dwindling traffic (ahh!), and low engagement (oww!). 

Imagine this: You enter a grocery store with dusty shelves and expired products. You’d turn around and leave without a second thought, wouldn’t you? This is exactly how visitors feel when they stumble upon your zombie website. 

Customers want a brand that is posting fresh content that looks towards the future. They trust a brand that demonstrates it’s here for the long haul, and is on the hunt for innovative new ideas! An outdated website not only repels potential customers but also stains your brand’s credibility. 

How to Revive Your Zombie Website 

Want to bring your website back into the land of the living? Well, then it’s time to clear away those cobwebs and perform some CPR on your content:

1. Search for Inspiration: To inspire your efforts, take a look at before-and-after examples of websites that transformed from lifeless to lively. 
2. Content Audit: Track down the areas of your website that need some life breathed into them. Identify outdated blog posts, old product or service descriptions, and irrelevant pages.
3. Refresh & Rewrite: Update your website’s content with the latest information and bring it into the modern era, while being careful to maintain your brand voice.
4. Optimize for SEO: Incorporate relevant keywords and meta descriptions to enhance search engine visibility. Fresh content is the Google algorithm’s favorite snack!
5. Enhance User Experience: Improve readability by using shorter paragraphs, clear headers, and opting for engaging images and videos. 

Measure the Success of Your Revived Website

How do you know if your efforts have paid off? Here are a few stats to keep an eye on:

• Organic Traffic: An increase in organic traffic shows your fresh content and SEO optimization is working.
• Bounce Rate: A decreased bounce rate indicates that visitors are engaging more with your content.
• Conversion Rate: Improved content often leads to higher conversion rates.

Consistency is key to your website’s success. Don’t stop here, either: you’ll want to regularly update your content to prevent a zombie website relapse. Remember, your website is your business’ digital identity. Don’t be an unhelpful bystander and doom your website to a zombie half-life. Be the hero who resurrects it from the dead!

Does reviving your zombie website feel like too much to stomach? That’s okay! Our Upswept Team of expert zombie-hunters is here to save the day. We’ve got an arsenal full of tools that are sure to bring your website back stronger than ever. 

A team like ours is ready to help, but good web designers can get it done better and faster if you have a good idea of what assistance you need. 

Before you start vetting web designers or jumping on consult calls, let’s discuss how you can start outlining a smart plan for your website design.

What Exactly Do You Do?

If you’re thinking about a website, your initial thoughts might lean more towards design elements – colors, fonts, logos, et cetera. While these elements are certainly important (and we’ll get to them!), your offering should take center stage. 

Start your design mission with clarity about who you are, what you offer, and who will benefit from this offering.

What Exactly Should Your Website Do?

Consider your website as your virtual storefront. If someone were to walk into your shop or office, what kind of experience would you want them to have? Would you make a great first impression if a potential customer had to wade through piles of boxes just to get to you? Probably not!

A physical storefront exists to feature what you’re selling, and make it easy to buy. From the customer’s perspective, they want a place where what they need is within reach and easy to find. Your online storefront should have the same intentions. 

As you embark on your website design project, be clear about what you want your website to feature and how you want your potential customers to engage with you.

Put the “Fun” in “Functionality”

With your offering taking center stage, you should also think about how your new website can improve the experience you deliver to your client. 

Having your contact information accessible and easy to find is an excellent start. Perhaps there could also be questions you can add to a contact form to speed up the onboarding process.

Can your website eliminate some extra steps for the customer as well? Functionalities like online scheduling or payment portals can help them start working with you quicker. 

Online stores or e-commerce plugins can also improve the shopping experience if you’re selling products. Again: the goal is creating a clear path for your customer to get what they need.

Good Design Solves Problems!

Remember when I said we’d get to design elements earlier? Well, here we are! Smart, intentional design sets you apart from your competitors. A unique look or brand can also help attract your dream customers.

You may be thinking, “Geez, if design is so important, why’d you wait so long to bring it up?” If you’ve chosen a smart design team, their goal should be purpose-driven design. You want the look and feel of your website to support your mission and vision, and to guide your site visitors on a clear path through your site. Yes, the design should attract your ideal folks – but it’s your offering that should keep them engaged and interested.

All of this said: it definitely helps if you have at least a general idea of how you’d like things to look. If you already have a brand kit, complete with a logo and color palette, that’s a great start. 

Maybe you’ve seen other websites that inspire you (or turn you off!). Sharing these with your design team can get the creative wheels turning. Don’t be shy about letting them know about your likes and dislikes!

If a new or refreshed website is one of your 2023 goals, you know we’re ready to help! If you want an assist mapping it all out, our website planner is the perfect tool to get that started. Or jump on a consultation call with us! 

After searching far and wide, they see a sign in the wilderness. Is this what they’ve been looking for?

Well, maybe. It’s kind of hard to tell. The sign seems like it might point them to what they need, but it’s mainly talking about some wizard and how great she is. There’s not really any information about how she could help them, just a list of her credentials and some vague testimonials that aren’t relevant to their problem. 

This is what happens when you try to be the main character on your website.

Yes, your website is there to showcase your business and your expertise, but you’re not the main character here–your customer is!

Your role is the all-knowing wizard that helps the main character find precisely what they need. You are the one they come to when they don’t know what to do. You are the one that lays out the path, equips them for the journey, and protects them from harm. 

You are their secret to success.

Keeping the focus of your website on your customer is how they know they’re in the right place. They can see that you understand them and the problems they face. Keep your website copy customer-focused by providing information that is relevant to their problem and how you can help them.

Your Homepage is Your Introduction

Your homepage gives a brief overview of what you do and who you are—and how you will solve your potential customer’s problem. 

So you need to be super clear about who that customer is. Build a picture of your main character (customer) and what they’re looking for. What do they need? What is standing in their way? 

Your homepage should:

• Clearly communicate how you’ll help. Be specific!
• Highlight the benefits of working with you. Why are you the best choice?
• Show social proof. Testimonials that show how you solved this problem for others.
• Inspire visitors to go deeper into your website. Use compelling calls to action (CTAs).
• Introduce you. Be brief and focus on how you can help them. 

Your About Page Isn’t Actually About You

The about page is where you can go into more detail about how you started your business and why it matters to you. But keep the focus on your customer and what’s relevant to them.

What would they want to know about you? Offer some background information, but don’t tell your whole life story. You can definitely throw in some fun facts or personal information—you want to be approachable—but avoid telling stories that your customer won’t care about.

Reinforce your experience and how it will help them. Talk about the benefits of working with you that prove you understand their problems. Maybe you’ve been in their shoes, or you’ve seen this problem before. 

And don’t forget that CTA directing them to contact you or learn more about working with you!

Show Why They Should Work with You

Your services or work with me page is where you lay out your offering clearly and simply. 

It should communicate the value you provide to your potential clients. Remind them of their problem and how you can solve it. 

Why are you the best person for the job? What specific features of your offer do you want to draw their attention to? Laying out exactly what they’ll get is a great way to show value. And transparency builds trust.

Testimonials will remind people how they’ll feel after working with you. Focus on the emotional benefits of your offer—people buy with their emotions first.

Remove objections and risks by addressing potential concerns and directing them to schedule a discovery call or consultation. 

Are Your FAQs Actually FAQs

Your FAQ page has three main goals:

• It saves you and your potential customers time—spending your time answering the same questions (in your consultation or email) makes your interactions with your customers less productive. Addressing common questions and objections on your website saves time and helps your potential customers feel more informed going in. 

• It drives traffic to your website—by framing your FAQs from your customer’s point of view, and using good SEO techniques, you have the potential to rank high on Google searches for those questions. 

• It builds trust and authority—a well-written and relevant FAQ page shows visitors to your website that you not only understand their problems but you already have the answers. Potential clients see you as an experienced source they can trust.

Your customers are on a journey where they are the main character. 

You are the sign they’ve been looking for: the answer to their problems and the one to lead them down the right path. 

You’re not the main character, but you are essential to the success of their journey. Make sure your website reflects that!

If you need some help (in this case, you ARE the main character), we’re the friendly website wizards you’re looking for! 

Check out our Website Strategy Session and show up online with purpose.

Still, with this July being the 32nd anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act, now is a good time to think about website accessibility, too. Some accessibility issues can get pretty technical, but there are some simpler ways to improve website accessibility that will help other folks in your audience, too.

Headings can improve your website accessibility.

Using headings throughout your website is just good practice, especially if you have a longer piece of content. Larger and more visually interesting headings help break up content visually for everyone, whether they have a disability or not. 

If you’re using a website builder, making the text “look nice” isn’t enough for website accessibility. If you see text options in your builder such as Heading 1, Heading 2, etc., you want to use them! Those Heading options correspond to their own special tags in the website code, so assistive technologies can recognize them as headings, making it much easier for folks to move through your website.

An added bonus of using headings properly: they can also help your search engine rankings! Using key search terms in heading tags is great for SEO.

Use descriptive link text.

“Click here” is a frequently used phrase for links on websites, and I’m here to tell you: that is precisely what NOT to do for website accessibility. 

People who rely on screen readers to navigate your website won’t know what the purpose of the link is or where it will take them, if you just use “click here” for your link text.

Instead, be descriptive with the link text you choose. For example, you can let folks know that they’re about to learn more about web design services. For buttons, you can keep it shorter but still give a clue about what will happen when they click, like saying Book a Consultation on a button that leads to your bookings calendar.

Check your color contrast.

Colors aren’t just for making your website look engaging and pretty–they also help your audience easily distinguish different pieces of content! However, when folks in your audience have color blindness, or even just have trouble reading dark text on a darker background, you can lose their attention pretty quickly.

This is why it’s important to choose colors carefully. If you’re working with a good web designer, then they’re hopefully checking for color contrast already! If you aren’t, there are some tools that can help, such as this color contrast checker, or even a Chrome add-on that lets you see like someone who’s color blind.

Use Alt tags on your images.

Something we’ve definitely noticed in web design trends is a reliance on photos and graphics. And hey, I get it. They’re eye-catching and inviting when done right! 

Unfortunately, screen readers can’t interpret photos and graphics used on your website. (sad trombone) That’s where Alt Text comes in! In short, alt-text describes the photo that a screen reader sees when it’s on your website. That way, folks with vision impairments can at least understand what’s in the image, even if they can’t see it.

And, just as with headings, using Alt tags on your images can also boost your SEO, so it’s definitely worth doing. Just look for an area in your website builder (such as WordPress) for a place to type in the short description of your photo.

This post isn’t an exhaustive list of ways to improve website accessibility, but I hope I’ve given you a few ways to help make sure your website is inviting in all of the people who are looking for you. To learn more about website accessibility, take a peek at ADA Site Compliance’s 20 Ways To Improve Web Accessibility. If you’re looking for help from a website pro, give us a shout.

In an ideal world, securing your domain name and establishing your online home would be enough. In this increasingly virtual world, however, you’ve got a fair amount of competition.

Don’t fret, friends: if you’re already on social media, you’ve got an excellent tool at your disposal for driving traffic to your website.

What’s All This About Traffic?

Some useful statistics: there are approximately 3.5 billion daily active social media users. They tend to spend about three hours a day on social media. 54% use social media to make purchasing decisions, and 71% are likely to recommend a brand or business to friends or family after a positive experience.

Those are a lot of numbers to let you know that social media has the potential to drive relevant traffic to your website – if you know how to use it in your favor.

Style Your Profile

We often spend a lot of our time dwelling on the type of content we want to share on our social media channels. That’s a good thing, for sure – we want to position ourselves as experts in our respective fields, and we want to offer folks quality information that supports this notion.

Don’t forget, however: the time you spend priming your profile is just as valuable as the content you share. Whether it’s your Instagram bio or your Facebook About page, your profile gives people relevant information about your business. It’s also the ideal place to include your website link!

When people enjoy and appreciate the content you share, they’re likely to click through to your profile to learn more. Take advantage of that!

Keyword Research Is Your Friend

Here at Upswept, we’re huge proponents of smart search engine optimization (SEO) to help drive traffic to your website. Spend some time getting into the mind of your potential customers and how they might be searching for you online, and you just might discover a veritable treasure trove of high-quality copy for your website.

What’s even more awesome about this? You can use this same keyword research to create social media content! When you know what your customers are talking about, you can find the right way to share your wisdom and contribute to their conversations.

Circling back to using your profiles effectively: consider adding keywords to your profiles and bios. In the same way we use search engines to find businesses, we can also perform the same searches on social media. Including relevant keywords ensures your profile appears in those searches.

Keep It Social

You’re showing up online to promote your business. Your customers, however, are more likely online for the social aspect. They’re there primarily to stay connected with friends and family and enjoy entertaining, engaging content. Make sure the content you share provides the kind of value your ideal customers would enjoy.

Create posts around general topics related to your niche or area of expertise (and connected, of course, to your keyword research!). When folks engage with your posts, make sure to respond in kind. Not only will that engagement create a connection with an individual, it will show others who might land on your feed that you’re invested in your community.

Increased engagement helps boost your presence in the algorithm. Combine that with the positive reputation you’ve built with your followers, and you have a recipe for increased brand awareness – and increased eyes on your website.

Looking to up your website traffic game? Schedule a website consultation with us, or learn more about our Purpose-Powered Website program!

Imagine you’re having a party at your house (I know I have been imagining it a lot this year!). What would you do to make a guest at your home feel comfortable and meet their needs?

Your website is your business’s home online, and seeing yourself as a friendly guide will help you find the words and images that will make your website visitors want to stick around for a while.

Show Website Visitors They’re in the Right Place

Unless you’re throwing a backyard blowout, you would probably greet your customer at the door. You wouldn’t just leave the door unlocked for them to wander into like they’re in a gothic horror novel, trying to figure out whether this is actually where you live.

You also wouldn’t leave them standing on the porch as you give them a long list of facts about your house. They’re going to get uncomfortable and, if you’re in Oregon like we are, cold and possibly rain-soaked.

When someone lands on your website, let them know they’re in the right place in a concise and friendly way. Don’t write a wall of text on your homepage about how great your company is or your life story. Let them know that this is where the party is, and then get ready to guide them to the next step. They can learn about who you are along the way, or once they’ve made themselves comfortable and are ready to have a conversation.

Escort Them to the Main Event

Your guests are there for the party, not to chit chat in your foyer or stare at your cabinet full of figurines. You also want them to join the party (why else would they be there? ).  Sure, they might be able to wander toward the sound of music and voices to find the party, but walking them into the room yourself makes it far less awkward.

A good host guides their guests to where they want to go and gives them a clear vision of what they can do when they get there. Show them to the place where they want to go so they can see what awaits them.

“They’re grilling out on the patio if you’re hungry, and people are setting up to play board games in the living room if you want to play.” 

You and your website visitor have a common goal—to find out what your offerings are and what they can do. Don’t make them dig around to find your offers. Tell them immediately where to go to find the thing that they want to buy from you or learn about. Someone on your website isn’t going to hang out just to be polite if they don’t like the scene. They’ll just bounce.

Make Them Feel Welcome

Ever walk into a room of people playing a game or having a conversation and just feel totally lost? At the most awkward of parties, nobody introduces you around, nobody welcomes you or gives you background on what’s going on, and you end up just standing there, trying to figure out what to do with yourself. Don’t do that to your guests!

On your website, it isn’t enough to just name your offer, then list its features and price. The visitor won’t be able to see how they fit in unless you show them. How do they use your product? What will your services do to make their lives better? Invite them to see themselves as part of your offer so they don’t get bored and leave.

Point Out What They’re Looking For 

If your guest is holding a plate of cookies, or if they have to go to the bathroom after a long car ride, you don’t want to leave them hanging. It’s courteous to tell them where to put their food, where the bathroom is, where they can hang their coat and other house rules. And it starts your evening off on the right foot by helping them orient themselves to their surroundings.

In the same way, create a space on your website where people can ask you questions, find answers to questions before ever needing to talk to you, and fulfill other needs like making returns or accessing membership perks.

The way you interact online is different than how you interact in the real world, but you’re still inviting real people into your digital space. Make that digital space as comfortable as possible, and they’ll want to stick around—and maybe even come back!

Kelley generously took some time to chat with us about diving head-first into self-employment, reaching your ideal clients, where to find some extremely tasty baked goods, and how to know when to call in some professional copywriting help.

UPSWEPT CREATIVE: According to your Instagram, you “quit your job to become a writer.” What were you doing before this? Have you encountered any noteworthy and/or mundane challenges in making that transition?

KELLEY GARDINER: In short, I was sitting at a desk with other people telling me what to do. Before that gig, I was creating programming for a continuing education program department at a community college in Indiana. (Then, we moved back to Portland in a recession.) Things I miss about working in an office: the food carts across the street. People hardly ever tell me if my outfit is cute. It’s hard to keep myself on track, as distractions are everywhere, and other than client deadlines, nothing really HAS to be done. That newsletter can go out a few days late, and no one but me will know, you know? 

It’s also a challenge going into a field that requires putting a lot of yourself on the line and dealing with rejection. Desk jobs might be soul-crushing, but they usually require little emotional energy. Running your own gig takes a lot.

UC: What are some strategies you use to reach your ideal clients?

KG: Talk to them. Show them what a catch I am. The right people will pick up what I’m laying down.

Right now, I’m using a bunch of strategies: blogging on kelleygardiner.com with relevant, fun stuff, guest blogging to boost my quote-unquote authority, having lots of coffees with people, networking events. I’ve actually gotten to the point where I kind of like networking, because I realized that it’s not sleazy. It’s about talking to people, learning about what they do, and seeing how you can help them. Sometimes, you can help people by writing words for them in exchange for money. That’s a valuable service, and no one has to buy unless they really want to.

UC: We love the updated website copy that you wrote with us — how the heck did you capture Upswept’s brand voice so authentically?

KG: Luckily for me, you have a strong brand voice that I was able to plug into! My biggest job was pulling out messages that needed to be coaxed a little further. Like about how awesome you are. That’s an important one.

Maybe I cheated a little bit by following Upswept over the course of several years, and knowing Sarah for a long time.  [ed. note: hey, it’s important to do the research, however it happens!]

UC: Let’s say I’ve got a website for my business and I know it needs a copy overhaul, but I don’t think I have the budget for it and I want to try to rewrite myself. Do you have any advice for me? Where do I start? How do I know when it’s time to call in a pro?

KG: Just write it! That’s always the easiest and hardest writing advice. Getting started is the hardest part. Remember the basics: what your customer wants, and why you are the best person to deliver it.

Write it. Leave it for two days. Edit it. Have a friend come look at it.

Are people confused about what you do after they read your website? Are you getting the wrong kind of leads? Are people not taking the actions you want? You might need help.

To be honest, most people don’t have the cash for professional copy when they’re first starting out. When you’re ready to go to the next level, give us a call. I also happen to have super affordable consulting packages to help people get their brains wrapped around projects like this. I’m here to help!

UC: Do you have a preferred coffee shop or similar for working away from home?

KG: More like a small rotation of coffee shops. I’ll shout out Jet Black, my walking-distance vegan coffee shop extraordinaire, with the friendliest staff and usually cute dogs on the patio. Then there’s Hungry Heart Bakery in Montavilla. Get the banana walnut muffin and/or the chocolate chunk cookie. No, seriously. They are both extremely good.

UC: Is this the right time for the story of your book about roller derby?

It’s extremely the right time! Somehow, it’s been six years since I played roller derby and the book is out of date/not being published. But, lately, I’ve been thinking about how it’s exactly the kind of writing I want to do more of. Taking something overwhelming and breaking it down to easy-to-follow steps. Encouraging people to do the thing. Writing that’s easy to read and keep reading. Helping people! I don’t want to literally hold your hand, because you know, sweaty, but I want to make hard things easier and more relatable.

—

If you’d like Kelley to make hard things easier for you, give her a holler via her website. We definitely recommend it!

Making your website findable is one of the most difficult tasks in creative branding online. To be findable, your website needs to be search engine friendly. This is accomplished with a number of techniques under the banner of SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. If you’re not familiar yet, take a look at my previous post on SEO Basics.

One simple technique is to create user-friendly URLs that permanently link to the different pages of your website. These URLs are ideally custom, short, easy to read, and use keywords that people are likely to search for when searching for your business. They should also be accurate to the information that’s on the page.

Sound like a lot of work?

It’s really not with WordPress. We do love building websites on WordPress, and one of the reasons is how easy it is for users to work with. Changing the URL naming conventions of your website is very straightforward, and making a custom URL for any given page is a breeze. This lets you name important pages of your website based on keywords people might naturally associate with your business. A page’s current permalink is located below the page title on the “Edit Post” page. Changing the naming conventions of every page automatically is found in Settings > Permalink Settings.

 Upswept Creative is a Portland based web design and creative branding company. Someone in need of web design services may use the search terms “website,” “professional,” and “Portland.” So, I commonly include these terms in custom URLs for different pages on our website – blog posts, service descriptions, even the main landing page. The more pages that have these keywords, the higher the search engine ranking will be for those specific terms.

If you need more guidance on where to start, Yoast is a tool that helps make sense of all this keywords business. It’s a WordPress plugin that outlines common  SEO techniques for each of your WordPress pages, and empowers you to take control and make adjustments to your site for better SEO. It allows you to define many different aspects of a page that directly affect how a search engine interacts with your website, like keywords, URL, and meta-description.

Identifying and defining aspects like keywords and meta-descriptions is closely tied to the core of your brand. Finding your brand center is what Upswept Creative specializes in, as well at the practical, nitty-gritty aspects of web design.

If you need some help with your website and SEO, we can help! Schedule your free consultation with us today.

I had the privilege of sitting in on a talk by prominent designer Frank Chimero not long ago, and he briefly touched on the challenge of designing when you have no constraints, and how designing for particular platforms–such as tablet e-readers, in his case–can actually be helpful, because the constraints of those platforms can give you, “something to lean against.” It helps give you direction, when you otherwise might not have one.

Your brand can be a lot like that, too. Branding is more than just design: it’s also how you talk about your business, how you communicate what’s unique about and important to you, and how you make sure that your potential client hears it and remembers it. It’s everything from color and style to the words you choose, and when you use them.

Have you ever been asked about your work, and felt completely unsure of what to say about it? “Oh, I make bags, all kinds of bags, shoulder bags and also little clutch bags… oh, and I make them all with recycled materials, because I really believe in upcycling and making the most of all materials! And I’m at some shops around town, but I also have an Etsy store, and…”

If you don’t have your brand outlined in your head, you might come out of it feeling scattered, and realize you haven’t even told them the name of your company, so they can actually find and buy your work!

This is a time when having constraints can really help you, rather than hurt you. When you have too many options, it can be paralyzing, because there are so many directions to go in. Something as essential as a color choice on a flyer, or a 30-second elevator speech, can feel like stumbling through the dark blindfolded, when you have no constraints and nothing to frame your thinking with.

By starting to outline your brand, you can identify the key issues that are important to you, and important to your client, and give yourself that Something To Lean Against. Even when you’re out of sorts, you’ll have those key points to fall back on, so you can share your work with someone effectively, even in hectic moments where you don’t feel 100% prepared for it.

If you haven’t put much thought into your brand yet, now is the time to start! Then, whether you’re planning for your future, or spontaneously sharing what you do in the present, you’ll be able to rest a little easier–you’ll have something to lean against.

Portland branding design – Portland web design – Upswept Creative