5 tips for quickly updating your website

The world is changing rapidly right now, but you can take control of the way you communicate about your small business with your customers. In this article we will cover five quick and easy tasks for updating your VistaPrint site to help you stay engaged with your customers.

• update your homepage
• add Youtube videos
• add or update contact info
• add social media
• create downloadable documents

Feel free to read up on each of those topics in more detail below, including step by step instructions for how to accomplish each one in the VistaPrint Website Builder.

Update your Homepage

Update your homepage about any new changes to your business.

 

For example, this violin instructor is now offering his weekly lessons with students virtually, instead of in person. The violin instructor deleted other content and replaced it with the announcement about virtual lessons and a button hyperlinked to a FAQs page where his customers, the music students, can learn more.

Here are steps to do the same:

1. What’s the most prominent message on your homepage? Identify if it should it be updated to reflect a new change to your business.
2. From the text toolbar, use the delete buttons to remove the content you are replacing 
3. Add title or button elements that describe the new changes to your business.
4. Publish

Add Youtube videos

If you are creating new video content you can display Youtube videos directly on your website.

For example, our violin instructor is linking to Youtube on the subject of learning to play the violin.

1. Identify where you want to add a Youtube video and move your mouse to expose the green plus button to open the elements menu 
   
2. From the elements menu, go to the Media section
3. Select the Youtube element
4. Double-click the Youtube element on your canvas to open settings drawer on the right
5. Paste the Youtube URL
6. Click Done 
7. Publish

 

Add or update contact Info

Update your hours of operation and contact info, if necessary.

Our violin instructor has closed his brick-and-mortar practice studio in favor of offering virtual lessons. He has updated his business address accordingly, and may change his work hours next.

Here are some steps for you to do the same:

1. Go to your Contact Us page, if you have one
2. Edit your text to include relevant information on how to reach you (email, telephone number, hours of operation)
3. Check the rest of your site for contact details, like your site header, site footer, or About Us page, and update all.
4. Publish

Add social media

If you are sharing content with your customers on social media, you can pull your Facebook page or Twitter timeline directly onto your website.

Our violin instructor is pulling his Facebook page and Twitter timeline directly onto his website, so website visitors can see his social media activity without navigating away to those platforms.

Here are some steps for you to do the same:

1. Pick a spot and expose the add element button and click it
   
2. Go to Social section of elements menu and select the Facebook Page element
3. This feed from your Facebook page activity is now on your website page. Click to expose element toolbar.
4. Click Settings cogwheel in element menu
5. Paste in your Facebook page URL into field
6. Now the element will reload and you should see your Facebook activity 
7. Click Publish

Take similar steps with your Twitter timeline

• Pick a spot and expose the add element button and click it
  
• Go to Social section of elements menu
• Select the Twitter Timeline element
• This feed from Twitter is now on your website page. Click to expose element toolbar.
• Click settings cogwheel in element menu
• Paste in your Twitter handle into field
• Now the element will reload and you should see your Twitter activity being pulled in!
• Publish

You can also add social links to your website for the platforms you actively use.

Our violin instructor is working hard to generate engaging content on social media right now. He is on a number of platforms, so he has added links to those platforms to his site footer.

Steps so you can do this too:

• Pick where in your site header or footer where you wish to add a social link and click the green button to choose elements.
  
• Go to the Social section of the Elements menu
• Click Social Links element
• Double click social links element to open settings drawer on right
• Paste your social profile URLs into the settings drawer next to the corresponding icon
• Save the drawer
• Publish

Create downloadable documents

Make it easy for your customers to complete contracts and forms by posting downloadable PDFs directly on your website. To do this, you’ll hyperlink text and/or icons to any file you upload.

Our violin teacher previously had new music students fill out a paper contract to get started working with him. Now that he is working remotely to offer virtual music lessons, his students need to be able to enroll with him virtually too. The violin instructor has uploaded a PDF of his contract to his website, and has hyperlinked to that PDF file both with text and a stock icon, to make it easy for his students to download that PDF.

1. Pick where you want to add an icon and click the green button to launch the Elements menu
   
2. In the Elements menu, select Image
3. Double-click the image to change it from the default
4. Go to Icons
5. Search for your icon, in this example a PDF icon so search “PDF”
6. Select your preferred icon from the results and click it.
7. Save.
8. Now your icon is on your webpage. resize as you see fit, then single click to expose the element toolbar
9. Click hyperlink button
10. Go to Files
11. Click an uploaded file or upload a new file
12. Save
13. Publish

Next is text.

1. Pick your spot to add text and click the green button to launch the Elements menu
   
2. In the elements menu select a Title element (or Paragraph if you prefer)
3. Now your text is on the webpage. Click into the text and type in your content, such as “New Student Contract”
4. Select all text
5. Click the hyperlink button
6. Files
7. Select your file, likely the same one you used for the hyperlinked icon
8. Save
9. Publish

Updating your website in response to these changing times is a good way to take back control and show your customers what the new normal will be. We love seeing small businesses engage with their customers using social media and video content, and the VistaPrint Website Builder is set up to equip you to do the same with your digital presence.