By Emily Soccorsy

The last time we undertook a genuinely disruptive home improvement project was during COVID.

Every morning, our contractor and his helper would show up with their energy drinks and hot Cheetos and positive attitudes; I’d wrangle our COVID puppy to keep him out of their way as I caught up on the latest updates from their lives, of which I’d recently become more invested than I’d ever thought possible.

All of our belongings from our kitchen, eating area, office, and dining room were piled into other rooms to accommodate the new flooring being installed. There was one small walkway through all of the things to my office. Every day I would jungle-gym-sashay through the familiar obstacles to make it to my workspace, try to keep the puppy entertained while working, and check in on my daughters, who were attending virtual school.

After a few weeks of bare floors, every surface covered in dust, and what seemed like painstakingly slow progress I woke up one morning with the thought, “I cannot actually imagine a day when this is not the norm. This will never be finished.” These sinking notions quickly led to the thought, “What have we done? Couldn’t we have just left well enough alone?”

These are familiar feelings when it comes to home renovation. They also apply to your virtual home, your website.

Even in the best of circumstances, either a website update or a build-from-scratch site can inspire similar feelings.

While we don’t build websites (but partner with excellent and talented teams that do), we are typically the people called in to help figure out the bigger questions than the site itself.

What should we say on the site?

How do we position ourselves for our audience?

How do we convey what makes us different and great at what we do?

And for those who are at an inflection point that requires some deeper work on the brand:

What do we, as a brand, stand for?

We want to ramp up our thought leadership. How should we do that, and how will it show up on our site?

How can this site position us for the clients we want to attract and away from the work we are no longer interested in doing?

I cannot say how much time, energy, and potential heartache answering the above six questions (before you start interviewing web dev agencies) will help ease the process of updating your website or creating a new one.

The ideas these questions uncover are the heart of the brand, and as I’ve written about for the last ten years, the brand is the juicy center of your entire business.

Defining your brand, articulating it clearly and consistently, weaving it into internal and external conversations and using it in every. single. aspect. of your business is the best way to differentiate, build a strong business, attract talent, generate content of interest and impact to your audience, and stand out in your market.

Once you have nailed down what that brand is, the website build becomes less of a messy renovation and more of a satisfying strategic project that excites you because it sets the tone of where your brand is going in the next few years.

Think of your site as a living, breathing reflection of the brand. Once you have it updated or built it out, consider doing regular DIY “around-the-house” type of projects to keep it fresh.

Project #1: Update your blog biweekly or monthly. Use expanded social media posts to keep the content fresh. Rotate between members of your team if you don’t have a designated content creator on your team, or (even better) collaborate with other thought leaders or influencers in your space. Use visuals (photos, infographics, pull quotes, headshots of collaborators, etc.) in these pieces; strive for four-six visuals per piece. These pieces should be a blend of shorter (300-600) and long (800-1200) on topics that follow the interests of your audience, address a common concern of the audience or industry, and be in alignment with relevant keyword topics aligned with your brand.

Project #2: Test your forms. Be sure your web support team is testing all forms monthly to make sure they are functioning properly. That includes how forms pull into your CRM and how submissions are tagged in those systems. Simple coding can help you segment your contacts as they come into your CRM and allow you to more effectively market moving forward.

Project #3: Keep team bios up-to-date. The team is page is usually one of the most visited sites on any website, but it’s often seen as a more static page. Given the amount of visitors it attracts, it shouldn’t be. When staff changes, be sure the website gets updated. Share wins about the team on your site. This can be done with callouts on the team page or as blog posts about larger awards.

Project #4: Update case studies quarterly. You’ll likely build out or update your site with client stories, testimonials, or case studies. That’s not a one-and-done endeavor. Once a quarter, assign someone on the team to review what you have and add the latest client wins or case studies. While they’re at it, they can also create social posts to showcase your most recent work.

Project #5: Every year, review home page copy to determine if there are simple tweaks that can be made. Healthy businesses and brands evolve. As part of your annual planning or reflection process, reflect on the home page (if not the whole site) to see what content could be updated to reflect new realities. The purpose of this is not necessarily to add a bunch of buzzy trend language, but to consider how accurately your brand is reflected on the site.  

While AI has undoubtedly impacted marketing, many of the strategies that tie effective content marketing to healthy websites remain intact, according to the results of Orbit Media Studio’s 2026 annual blogging statistics and content marketing study of more than 1,000 marketers. A few that we consistently implement with our clients are hosting webinars, conducting research, collaborating with other influencers in your space, and continually reviewing the performance of content and tactics to see what we can learn and to improve our work for clients.

These might not be the sexiest of strategies, but, done well, with a human-powered creative approach to each one, they amount to clear, compelling communication that supports brand growth, sales, and the building of thought leadership and differentiation in an increasingly crowded market.

And they don’t require hard hats.

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