5 Steps to Make the “Golden” Years of a Website Healthier!

Things are always going to change and with software, these changes come fast. Coding languages change. Technologies change. Web users expectations change. And businesses change, too. You’ll want your business website to reflect these demands. That being said, it’s also important to evaluate new technology before applying it. Not every new trend is going to last or bring value to your company. But some trends will make it in the long run and they’re the ones you need to get on board.

Thriving in the digital era means adapting to the right standards at the right time.

The lifespan of a website can vary considerably and can be anywhere between one and five years, sometimes even a bit longer. Are you keeping your ear to the ground and seeing how people like new trends? Patience can be a good advisor, we’ve all been burned by opting for technologies too early.

Companies make big investments in websites and will stick to their stack for quite some time. If the right decisions are made right up front, you can get yourself fixed up with a website that might last you a good five years, with the right maintenance and updates. As much as you may believe that everyone discards their current setup for a shiny new website every six months, it isn’t the case at all.

Websites will start showing their age, but if the software is safe and the site is still young enough to professionally reflect your business, there’s no need to chuck everything away. Keep what’s most representative and nourish what needs nourishing. There are ways to take months or years off the look of your website and to keep it going for a while longer. Talk to your TYPO3 agency or freelancer about options. And think of your website as your garden. Give it time and attention, and just what it needs to look perfectly gorgeous.  

1. Plant new seeds
   Adding new content is a smart decision and also really easy to handle if you’re using a content management system like TYPO3. By adding new articles, pictures and videos, you’re making your site look young again. Plus, the seeds of today are your plants of tomorrow. The content can be used further down the road, because when you get your next update or relaunch done, you can take all of this along with you.

2. Clean out the weeds and trim the hedges
   For this, you’ll need to analyze what pages people are visiting by using a tool like Google Analytics. Remove links in the navigation that people click on the least and remove pages no one looks at.

3. Enrich the soil
   Organic matter is the key to soil fertility. Add things to your website, that people are going to love. It’ll make your business prosper by attracting people like flowers attract bees. Add new offers or downloads. Providing free PDFs with helpful information for your visitors can be a step towards them not only becoming customers of yours,  but also promoters of your product, project and website.
   This doesn’t necessarily have to be new content, you can edit content that has already been used. It’s compost which is especially rich in nutrients and promotes growth!

4. Mow the lawn
   Give the large areas attention, meaning your homepage. By having your homepage redesigned you’ll make the site seem fresh for visitors and will gain a bit of time. But as with mowing the lawn, a redesign is a temporary fix - you turn your back on the grass and before you know it, it needs mowing again. Also, you want to make sure that the design changes aren’t too big as you want to avoid putting it out of alignment with the rest of the website.

5. Plant flowers in the flower bed
   Make people want to talk about your website by adding a new template layout that takes advantage of modern design trends.

Reviving a website can prolong its lifespan and be a wise decision. But the day will come when you’ll need an update or relaunch for security reasons.

TYPO3 CMS always has 2 current versions that are supplied with free security bug fixing. At the time of this writing, this is TYPO3 7.6 and TYPO3 8.7. If your website is still running on the previous version, TYPO3 6.2, you’ll want to talk to your TYPO3 agency or freelancer about getting it migrated to one of the current versions.

If you come to the conclusion that you need more time before migrating, you may want to consider opting for our extended software support program: Extended Long-Term-Support (ELTS).

ELTS provides you with security bug fixes as well as compatibility fixes for up to an additional 24 months. It can be booked for a single year or for the whole two years, giving you a total support period of altogether 5 years for TYPO3 CMS 6.2 LTS.