Four simple steps to keeping your website fresh.
It’s easy to get busy with everyday work and put off things you need to do for your own business. One that often gets postponed is making regular updates to your company’s website. In the spirit of spring cleaning, take a look at your site and consider some of the things you can do to spruce the place up a bit. Then head into the rest of the year with your website looking and working better than before.
Whether you have a small marketing site or a full-fledged, enterprise-level web presence, you’re bound to know what parts of your site can and should be updated regularly. Spend some time clicking through the site to see if those key areas have current information.
To get started, you can:
- Audit the site for content that has changed, like personnel, contact information, locations and service offerings.
- Consider what new information hasn’t been added to the site yet.
- Remove out-of-date information that is no longer accurate.
The “technical” side of owning a website shouldn’t be too daunting to the average website owner. There are three things that are easy to check up on in order to make sure your site visitors are having a good experience.
- Run a link checker on your site to identify broken links within your site, and to identify dead links in places where you’ve linked to external content.
- Take a look at where you’ve referenced social media and/or sharing services from your site. Verify that you’re linking to the right accounts and pages.
- Open your site in different web browsers. Most modern browsers update themselves continuously, so you should always be aware of how your site is performing in them.
When’s the last time you looked at your site traffic reports and website analytics? Do you know how many people visit your site on a regular basis? What pages are most popular? These are important insights to understand if you want to get the most out of your website. Here’s what you can do:
- Review your site traffic reports or analytics package. Google Analytics is an excellent—and free—tool to use for this purpose. Tools like this allow you understand conversion rates on things like landing pages, e-commerce transactions and email signups, helping you identify where to focus your efforts for better results.
- Look at which search engines have referred people to your site and what search terms they are using. If you’re getting a lot of traffic for terms that don’t lead to increased business for you, then it may be time to look at your comprehensive SEO strategy.
- Perform a search via Google, Bing and Yahoo for your business name, address, locations and other “local” search criteria. Make sure your site’s information matches what’s in popular online local business listings and services.
Take a step back and evaluate the big picture. Without taking the time to assess whether your business strategy still lines up with your marketing and web strategy, you could be missing out on key opportunities and new resources. To begin:
- Evaluate whether the site’s purpose is still on track. Does your site’s purpose and functionality align with your marketing and business goals? What could be improved?
- Consider what you perceive is working well and what’s not. What have you learned over time that would help you make better choices?
- Factor in external feedback and how you can use this to improve your visitors’ experiences.
